


Dead by Moonlight

by dondengaeshi



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, it's suicide but not in the sense that may immediately come to mind, star-crossed lovers, taeyong falls in love with a forest spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 54,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23390461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dondengaeshi/pseuds/dondengaeshi
Summary: Somewhere in between crushing loneliness, academic probation, and residual high school teen angst, Taeyong meets Doyoung.Escapism has always been a bad habit of his.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 16
Kudos: 90
Collections: (let's get away) just the two of us: dotae fan week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, massive thank you to my beta readers @taeil-baeby, @fortheloveofnct, and @tytrack0107 on tumblr!
> 
> for my dear non-americans, i've done you the courtesy of putting together this handy-dandy "what the fuck does this mean in normal person language" guidebook to american high school/college:
> 
> freshman - 9th grader, ages 14-15  
> sophomore - 10th grader, ages 15-16  
> junior - 11th grader, ages 16-17  
> senior - 12th grader, ages 17-18. the final year before four years of college/university, should one elect to continue their education. while this story takes place in korea, the guideline above still holds true. mostly.
> 
> freshman through senior can also refer to the four years of college respectively. 
> 
> final note: a copse is a small group of trees.

When Taeyong was a child, he had been absolutely enamoured with the stories of unexplainable events and sightings of supernatural creatures that had first begun permeating the local news channels. 

His parents had chastised him for being glued to the TV screen all the time, but eventually they gave up on him— _at least it's not cartoons,_ they had said. Taeyong remembers the news report that still remains stuck in his head to this day; the story of a young boy his age who had mysteriously disappeared one calm morning in late winter. He hadn't known him personally, but he was the gossip of Taeyong's entire elementary school for the year following his disappearance.

Taeyong had been _obsessed_ with the case; he had been a bit of a blabbermouth as a child, and he took it upon himself to disseminate as much information (read: correct others) on the disappearance as possible, whenever possible. 

But really, there really wasn't much to the story at all. The boy in question had been with his parents out on one of the scenic bike trails on the outskirts of Incheon; they had been too shocked to check the time, but judging by the position of the sun, they had estimated it to be around noon when he vanished. The family had paused to take a short saunter through an open field; the parents had looked away for a moment at the sound of a passing car, and when they turned back, their son was gone without a trace.

The authorities had nothing to go on, and the case was dropped. The boy was never found.

Mysteries like the disappearance of that boy had been cropping up more and more over the last decade and a half—people suddenly going missing, strangely localized natural disasters, inexplicable oddities that didn't adhere to any law of physics humanity was currently aware of. The world was at a loss for the sudden rise in supernatural events. Most people called for some kind of governmental action while myriads of smaller groups clamored for a new world order, a religious uprising, or pretty much _anything_ that would allow normalcy to reassert itself.

For the majority of people, though, normalcy hadn't quite escaped their lives. Students still went to school, shops were still in business, the sun still rose and fell. All you could do was hope that you wouldn't be the victim of the next unexplainable event; or if you were, hope that it wasn't disastrous enough to be life ruining. 

Taeyong couldn't quite explain it back then, more responsive to emotion than to rational thought, but it wasn't until he was in high school that he realized how attracted he was to all things fundamentally mysterious and, on occasion, whimsical. The idea that there's more to this universe that can be explained, that there exist things in this world that don't _require_ an explanation, gave him a strong sense of vindication and excitement. 

Even as he grew older and he learned that he was unable to navigate the minutiae of social conventions the way other people could, he clung tightly to the idea that there was another world, another life out there waiting for him that was bigger than his skin. 

That isn't to say Taeyong spent his days daydreaming about a life that could never come into fruition; it was more accurate to say that, at his core, he simply longed to _escape._ It wasn't an aspect of himself he was cognizant of on a day-to-day basis, but he has always known on some level that it was the root from which the rest of his character grew. 

As it would happen, though, his preoccupation with supernatural events faded away, replaced by a very firm foothold in the real world. Though he may have secretly prayed for it, neither he nor anyone he knew personally would be touched by anything preternatural, and so it had eventually slipped his mind. The root of mysticism still held fast, but it was no longer a lens through which he saw the world. 

It's what's on his mind now as he doodles uneven circles into his notebook, unable to muster enough energy to pay attention to the lecture at hand. He had forgotten to charge his laptop the night previous, his reflection on the dark screen almost mocking him when he had repeatedly pressed the power button to no avail. Taking notes by hand, experience had taught him, was never going to get him anywhere as far as retaining information goes. 

He knows it's no excuse, though, so he remains for the entirety of the lecture, managing to fill at least half a page with information he hopes to extrapolate on later. He collapses in a heap on his bed once he returns to his dorm, exhausted after doing absolutely nothing, as usual. A year ago when he had been a freshman, upperclassmen had told him that college was hard to adjust to initially, and not to be too discouraged by his first year. It had been enough to drag himself across the finish line, and his second year had only been slightly more painful—but now, two months into his junior year, it's difficult to drag himself out of bed most mornings. Today had been no different. 

He has another class in the afternoon and a half-finished paper due sometime in the next few days that he wanted to finish ahead of time, but right now all he wants to do is sleep. He's already floating in the limbo between consciousness when he hears Johnny's voice from somewhere across the room.

"Taeyong! I hardly even heard you come in," he says. Taeyong opens one eye and sees Johnny peeking out from the bathroom entrance. His hair is disheveled. "Did you get my text?" 

Taeyong groans an affirmative, letting his eye shut. He had seen the alert while he was in the lecture hall and decided he didn't have the mental capacity to answer it. It was an invitation to a party that he hadn't yet committed to attending, even though he'd been pestered about it for the entire week before. For whatever reason, the mental faculty necessary to decide a simple yes or no had completely escaped him.

"Are you gonna respond to it?" Johnny calls again, and Taeyong supposes this conversation will have to be at a decibel level too loud for whatever time it is right now. 

"I'll think about it!" he shouts back.

"You've been thinking about it for a week now! The other guys want to know if you'll be there or not."

Taeyong groans and turns his back to wherever Johnny's voice is coming from. "Does it fucking matter? If I show up, I show up. If I don't, I don't. I don't understand why they care."

"Maybe because we're your friends and like when you're around?" Johnny throws back without hesitation, a sharper edge to his voice that makes Taeyong cringe. As loving as Johnny could be, he was no stranger to putting people in their place when he thought it was needed. Maybe that's what made it sting more. Still, he's too petty to give him the last word.

"Well maybe you shouldn't."

Usually Johnny would chastise him for how needlessly evasive he can be, but he doesn't say anything in response to that. He probably recognizes that he isn't going to get through to Taeyong at all in this state. It's always been difficult to irritate Johnny, but he supposes it's only a matter of time before his patience runs thin. 

Johnny leaves without saying goodbye, and Taeyong can hear the periodic dripping of the bathroom faucet in his absence. With a sigh, heaves himself off the bed to turn the faucet completely off. There's a sadness raking at his chest as he moves and it follows him all the way back to his bed, threatening to rise up and tear through his skin.

He's an hour late to his next class when he wakes up, so he doesn't bother going. His computer should be fully charged by now, but guilt is gnawing a hole in his mental to-do list, so he fishes out his phone from under his pillow and shoots Johnny a text.

_I'm sorry for being so prickly earlier._

_I haven't been feeling my best lately, but I'm sure you know that. Thanks for sticking by me anyway._

_I'll come to the party._

With that, Taeyong's conscience is clear enough for him to finish his essay. When his laptop boots up, there's a news headline on the home page of his browser that catches his eye. It's a report from the university's science department, announcing that the next coming transit of Venus will be visible from Incheon observatory sometime mid-spring. 

Taeyong doesn't remember where he heard it, but he remembers that transits of Venus only occur with centuries between them, and even that estimate can vary wildly. It's a once in a lifetime event either way, so he makes a note on his calendar on a random date in March to go see it. Maybe he'll even invite Johnny and the others along.

He isn't even sure if they'd like that kind of thing, and a strong feeling of melancholy unfurls in his chest at the thought. Taeyong's affinity with his friends from high school had faded forever ago, at some point while he probably wasn't paying attention. He feels like the invitations to these parties are more of a courtesy than anything else. 

He finishes the essay in record time. The pain of trying to meet the word count and mindlessly formatting his sources is decidedly infinitely more bearable than thinking about the friendships he left to deteriorate. 

  
月  
  
  


That Saturday finds him at the apartment of Nakamoto Yuta at 10 p.m. sharp—Taeyong, if anything, was always punctual. He arrives alone, Johnny leaving early to help him get things prepared. He can already hear loud voices from where he stands at the front door. His hand is poised to knock but the door swings open before he can, and there stands one Mark Lee wearing two party cone hats; one on his head, the other on his chin. He looks sober.

"Taeyong-hyung!" he cries, smiling brightly, eyes wide open in a childish excitement that Taeyong doesn't think he'll ever grow out of. "Jungwoo-hyung wasn't sure if you were coming."

"I'm here, alright. I'm wondering who let _you_ in, squirt." 

He says that, but he already knows the answer. Nakamoto Yuta has always been one to stretch morality to its limits. At a solid four years his junior, Mark was just barely a college student; a fair share of people mistook him for a middle schooler, anyway. Yuta at least had enough of a conscience to not let Mark drink, but Taeyong's always had high standards. This was beyond pushing it.

"Oh, you know Yuta-hyung," Mark says nonchalantly, beckoning him inside.

Yuta's apartment is on the more upscale end; much larger than anything Taeyong expects to have when he finishes school. The entryway is dark, only faintly illuminated by the jungle of LED lights strung up on every wall throughout the living room and the tall mood lights that stand in the spaces they didn't quite reach. 

The couches had been arranged into a closed rectangle, so that the only way to grab a seat was to hop over the back cushions. He can make out the profiles of Johnny, Jungwoo, Jaehyun, Donghyuck, and some guy he's seen around but has never formally met. There's a large coffee table in the center with a disorganized pile of chips and dip and half-empty beer cans; beneath it is a large speaker that's playing some pop song with the bass turned up high enough to make the cards on the table visibly vibrate. Mark rushes past him to take his seat, and Taeyong absently nods in approval when he sees that in front of him is a can of unassuming ginger ale. He always tells Johnny to keep an eye on him—which he always does—but he can't help the prick of anxiety of such a nice kid hanging around Yuta's crowd. His own crowd, he supposes.

Taeyong slides in between Mark and Jaehyun, waiting for their round to end so he can join in during the reshuffle. The guy Taeyong doesn't know is the card czar for this round. While he's picking, Jaehyun leans in to his side.

"We're glad you could make it," he says warmly. "These things aren't the same without you." 

Taeyong really doubts that, but he appreciates the sentiment regardless. Taeyong isn't the same party animal three years ago when he thought that college would be the same as high school. He returns the smile with a genuine one of his own, and sits back as everyone else around the table groans at the czar's final choice. 

More and more people arrive in the apartment while the second round plays out, and it's not long before they have to shout over others to be heard. Nobody's started drinking seriously yet, but Yuta, ever the gracious host, begins not-so-subtly setting out the tall bottles of alcohol along with classic red plastic cups. 

Taeyong decides after a while that the mood lights were actually a fantastic idea, because it's easier to let loose in the comfort of semi-darkness than glaring artificial light. Laughter seems to bubble out readily, and he can't remember the last time he was this loud just for the fun of it. He goes on to win the next three Cards Against Humanity rounds in a row, and by then a small crowd had gathered beside them to watch the momentous event. 

They disperse when Donghyuck throws his deck in the air in anger for dramatic effect, storming away and dragging Mark by the wrist with him. Jungwoo sidles up to Taeyong's side once they're moving away from the living room, arm slung over his shoulder. 

"The others are playing beer pong in the kitchen," he yells over the music that's risen to a crescendo. "We _need_ to go watch." 

Jungwoo guides him to the kitchen, settling in the sidelines with everyone else. Someone he thinks he should know is up to shoot, biting the inside of his cheek in his focus while he aims. He ends up scoring, liquid from the plastic cup splashing onto the table. 

Taeyong looks up to see who has to take the first drink of shame, and he feels his throat constrict a little. There stands Nakamoto Yuta in the flesh, brushing his bleached hair back with one hand and grabbing one of the cups with the other. Taeyong's eyes lock onto his rarely-exposed forehead, the line of his nose leading him down to bright eyes and pink lips. His fingers dig into the skin where his arms are crossed, and he doesn't bother pretending to not stare at the pillar of Yuta's neck as he throws back the beer. 

Sickness starts to make his stomach feel tense, jolly mood from earlier nowhere to be found, but he ignores it. Taeyong turns his head to the side to find Jungwoo looking at him, expression carefully blank, a faint smile playing at his lips. 

Most people, when asked what their first impression of Kim Jungwoo was, would say that he's kind, if not somewhat dopey. Nothing spectacular, really.

Unfortunately, Taeyong didn't have the privilege of blissful ignorance, and it was all too easy to read the 'lights-on-nobody-home' look on his face as a taunt, if not a downright provocation. Jungwoo hated direct confrontation for the most part, but he certainly had his ways of letting others know what he thought. 

"Piss off," Taeyong says, turning away from him. Jungwoo presses him closer to his body, rubbing his shoulder on the other side. 

"You need to get laid, man." 

"I didn't ask." 

"Don't get prickly with me," Jungwoo releases him from his grip then. "You've seriously been pining after him for _years._ Why don't you just make a move?"

Taeyong keeps an alphabetized list of all the reasons why he can't hit on Nakamoto Yuta like he wants. The biggest one is that Yuta's relationships rarely last more than two months; and those are the rare occasions when he _does_ want to commit to a relationship. Otherwise, Yuta was a one-night stand type of person, and Taeyong isn't about to make a fool of himself by thinking he'll be any different. 

The other reason—the one he's only ever shared with Johnny—is that Nakamoto Yuta was his foil as much as he was a love interest. Even when he had first moved to Korea as an exchange student back when they were seniors, he had an aura about him that made him extremely popular; well-liked would be a massive understatement. While Taeyong had to work to overcome his awkwardness, Yuta's was charming enough for people to overlook, and eventually he would come to shed it completely. Taeyong wasn't so fortunate.

As college wore on, social status became less and less important to him (and thank god for that), but Yuta still seemed to excel in every area of life Taeyong faltered. While the weight of academia steadily sucked away his motivation to do anything besides lay down and breathe, Yuta seemed to be elected to some new club or council position by the month, and he certainly had the accolades to go with them. Taeyong was about as average a student could get, although his academic counselor would probably say _below_ average, considering his current GPA. Yuta was athletic and handsome to a fault, and Taeyong never grew out of his awkward, scrawny body like his mom told him he would; and if anyone considered Taeyong handsome, he was totally out of the loop, because he hasn't been hit on in _years,_ nor has he really been attracted to anyone besides Yuta.

Maybe it's the stress of academia or his true anti-social self coming out, but he hasn't even been particularly interested in becoming anyone's friend. Initially he had thought that he simply didn't come off as approachable, but more and more lately has the pervasive thought in his mind been that others simply aren't interested in him. 

The idea was unbearable. 

Unbearable, and emphasized by the fact that even though he and Yuta shared many mutual friends, Taeyong can't recall a single time Yuta has spared him a conversation. They kept a polite, almost professional distance from each other, neither one willing to take that extra step and bridge whatever awkward distance was between them. Taeyong had assumed responsibility for this.

And so Yuta's existence haunted Taeyong. 

He was everything Taeyong had expected himself to be, had _wanted_ himself to be; an all-around functional and well-liked person. Nowadays he isn't even sure if he's a person at all as he stumbles through conversations and misses social cues like he's being paid to, and the humiliation of so easily losing track of himself makes him ashamed to even wake up most days.

Still, it's easy enough to keep to himself and make it through each day one hour at a time, because usually he doesn't have to come face to face with the introspective battle arena of his own creation.

It's where he is right now, only paying half-attention to all of the quarter-full cups of beer Yuta and his opponent have been throwing back. Gradually all of the soft mood lights and the thumping bass coming from the living room speakers and the sound of Jungwoo laughing into his ear blur together, and Taeyong isn't even sure what the hell he's doing anymore. He thinks about his bed back at the dorms several miles away, the essay he's finished and actually sort of proud of but it doesn't matter because he'll probably get a shit grade on it anyway, the keyboard he has set up by his desk that he hasn't touched in months and the way he could probably walk to Yuta's apartment from the dorms in his sleep, and suddenly he wants nothing to do with this life anymore. He feels like he's running around in circles, chasing some feeling of contentment or satisfaction he can't even place because he isn't sure anymore if he's ever truly felt it.

God, he is so sick of chasing feelings. 

Taeyong is barely aware of someone tugging at his arm, pulling, until the cold night air stings his nose and it feels like he's been shocked with an AED. It's only November, but he's dreading what the winter has in store for him this year. 

"Take a breath, hyung," Jaehyun's soothing voice calls to him. The ground comes into focus gently along with his feet, and legs, and the arms that are propped up against the fabric of the patio chair. Right—a physical form. Taeyong has one of those. 

Shutting his eyes, he takes in a breath of air slowly through his nose, holding it for a few moments, then exhaling through his mouth at the same pace. 

"Again," Jaehyun says. Taeyong does, and does it again, then a third time until Jaehyun is satisfied. 

"It's cold out here," Taeyong says. His eyes are still trained to the ground, although it's nice to know that there _is_ a ground. Turns out stability _is_ possible, he thinks. 

"You looked like you were about to pass out in there. Are you okay?" 

"I feel better," Taeyong says. It's not a lie. 

"Do you want to go home? I can walk you there," Jaehyun offers, ever the gentleman. It's a wonder he's single. He takes a seat beside Taeyong. "I didn't even think you'd come tonight. You've been avoiding everyone, lately." 

Taeyong rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "I know. I'm sorry if you've missed me. It's just been...difficult." 

"We've all missed you, hyung." Taeyong can read the look in his eyes well enough to know that what he meant was ' _I_ missed you.' 

He isn't typically one to isolate himself when he's feeling down, believe it or not. But it seems like his only option when the people who usually cheer him up are the ones contributing to his gloom. 

That's what's happening now. He's always felt a lingering sense of guilt at his inability to return Jaehyun's affections. It's intensified now when he thinks about how borderline shitty a friend he's been. He really, _really_ doesn't deserve his sympathy. 

But Jaehyun has always been there for him, and whether he likes it or not, it seems like he always will. 

He goes back inside despite Jaehyun's quietly frantic doting, leaving him outside the door of Yuta's bathroom. He's thankful for the volume of chaos in the apartment that muffles the sound of him locking the door. 

He turns on the sink faucet, dousing his face in cold water and willing these shitty feelings to go away. He can imagine Jaehyun sitting by the bathroom door just outside waiting for him. He wishes to every god that he'd just leave him alone to his self-inflicted disaster of a life.

Even bigger than his desire to disappear is his fear of making a scene, so he dries his face with a hand towel and steps out before he can convince himself not to.

To his surprise, Jaehyun isn't there. He's nowhere to be found when he looks both ways down the hall, so Taeyong tiptoes through the crowd and back to the kitchen, hoping his presence wasn't missed. 

By now both Yuta and his opponent have one cup left. The gathering of people watching are chattering excitedly, cheering and then sighing dejectedly when they shoot and miss. After the second cycle, Yuta's voice rises over the din.

"How about this," he says with a wicked grin. "If I make this next one, Taeil has to kiss me." 

People in the congregation cheer, or look at each other scandalously, or roll their eyes with a smile that betrays their encouragement of Yuta's antics. The opponent—Taeil, he supposes—looks sheepish under everyone's gaze. Taeyong can only faintly make out his darkened cheeks. 

It's a childish bet, but he's suddenly a lot more interested in the match than he cares to admit.

Yuta makes the next shot, because of course he does, and Taeyong walks away before he witnesses whatever display he's about to put on. His feet carry him to the living room, then to the front door, and he thinks someone is calling his name but the night air is too cold and it's demanding all of his attention. 

Unlocking his bike from the lamp post nearby, he angrily blinks away tears that threaten to fall. It's fucking pathetic to become so riled up by Yuta kissing someone else. They're not friends and they're hardly acquaintances; why is it so hard for Taeyong to retract his ego from him for once? And Jaehyun—hell, Taeyong didn't know tenderness could be so suffocating. Why can't he fall for someone gentle like him?

He wants to go home and lay down, but he thinks he might retch up his internal organs if he has to lay eyes on the campus buildings at any point tonight. He pedals out of Yuta's gated community and is greeted with the same wide, empty roads he had come down earlier that night. The steady croon of tires on asphalt fill the silence while he cruises downhill. Taeyong wishes the road would continue down forever, gradually increasing its tilt until it was at a solid ninety degree angle, and the empty nothingness of tar would swallow him whole. 

He isn't sure how long or how far he bikes, and he doesn't really care, either. He avoids any place with too many lights or sounds, content to pedal through the silent suburbia until houses fade to empty plazas fade to empty plots of land sporting grass fields that look like they haven't been tended to in years. The sidewalk ended some time ago, so he's forced to ride in the middle of the small two-lane road and hope that no cars come. 

And none do. It feels like the end of the world here, and he's half expecting a sign from God that says _Dead End; Turn Back._ The road never ends, though. Taeyong is alone with newly paved tar and the cold glow of the full moon. At some point part of the road turns off in a new direction, and without thinking twice, he follows it.

The road here is unpaved, with gouges in the dirt like tires have frequented the path. It turns into a gently sloping hill, and Taeyong can't see an end to it in sight. It winds in and out of itself playfully, and he's so focused on keeping his bike on track that he nearly misses the wooden picket sign sticking out of the dirt at an angle. He slows to a stop beside it. It's a bit difficult to read, but he can just barely make out the text.

HANATAN TRAILHEAD 

16.1 KM

Taeyong stares at it for some moments before looking up to the moon. Something in his heart pangs at how still and quiet it looks, like it's begging him to stay and keep it company. He obliges. 

Continuing on the trail, the brush growing alongside it begins to thicken, small ferns turning into scrawny bushes, which in turn become adolescent trees still held up by wooden braces. The bitter scent of greenery makes his nose burn, but he toughs it out. It's not very long until he's surrounded by full-grown camphor and camellia trees, their branches reaching high above him and blocking out most of the moonlight. What light makes it through their canopy is deathly still; there's not even a hint of a breeze that could ruffle the sea of leaves. Taeyong slows his pace to admire the dappled light that paints the flora around him.

Eventually he stops biking, electing to walk with the bike at his side. The squeak of moving pedals against metal was grating on his ears in the peaceful quiet. The path makes an oddly sharp curve at some point, and on the opposite side of the curve Taeyong notices an oddly thin patch of thicket. White light streams in from between the brush like a spotlight, and his curiosity is thoroughly piqued. 

Forgoing the stand, Taeyong lays his bike down gently in the grass and pushes his way through the thin copse. He's brought to a small, brightly lit clearing carpeted with short grass, neatly contrasting the wild tangle of flora that surrounds it. Small white flowers dot the field, almost glowing in the moonlight. It looks like a garden patch of constellations. 

Stepping deeper into the clearing, Taeyong realizes with a start that it's overlooking a cliff—beneath him is an even wider expanse of woods than he expected, stretching into the horizon and fading as suburban Incheon neighborhoods take over the land in all their copy-paste architectural glory. 

He's so intently focused on the ocean of trees, that he nearly shouts with surprise when he notices a figure some meters away from him. It's hard to make out at first, but it's definitely a person, Taeyong decides. They're looking up to the sky, and all Taeyong can make out is off-white clothing and dark hair.

"Hello?" Taeyong calls out to them. The figure visibly tenses before looking both ways frantically in an attempt to find the source of his voice. Their eyes meet, and Taeyong takes careful steps forward until he's close enough to settle beside them in the grass. It's a guy, he realizes, now seeing him up close. 

"Hello," he says meekly. His voice is hoarse, like it's the first time he's used it in a while. His eyes are still wide open with surprise, like he isn't sure if he's really seeing Taeyong. 

"Sorry if I surprised you. I didn't expect to find anyone else here." 

The man doesn't respond, just continues staring. 

"What's your name?" Taeyong tries again. This time he worries the inside of his cheek, casting his eyes to the ground momentarily before looking back up at him.

"Kim Doyoung," he says. His eyes are a deep brown, but they reflect the moon's light in a way that strikes Taeyong as odd, like something isn't quite right but he can't put his finger on it.

"I'm Lee Taeyong," he introduces. "What brings you out here so late?" His eyes fall back to his off-white clothing, and he realizes that they're somewhat tattered, small bunches of the fabric falling from his arms in strips. It looks like silk. He can't imagine anyone wearing white silk living in the woods.

"I don't know," Doyoung answers. "I just...found myself here." 

"You found yourself here," Taeyong repeats incredulously. Doyoung's body has turned itself ever so slightly towards him now, but he doesn't answer. His gaze pitches down again to the grass where his palm lays flat, the short, stiff grass poking up from between his fingers. He raises his hand carefully, palm curling into a gentle 'c' shape, and Taeyong hardly believes what he sees happen.

A small patch of white flowers seem to raise themself from the spot where Doyoung's hand had lay, soundless, buds sprouting from nothing and maturing into fully formed flowers within seconds. Their petals are shaped like a spade, except the ends of them split into two like a snake's tongue. Taeyong thinks they're emitting the faintest glow, but it's difficult to tell. Doyoung hasn't noticed how shocked he is.

"Being here feels right, though. It feels familiar." he answers finally.

Then it clicks in Taeyong's mind. 

Doyoung is a supernatural. 

"You're not human," Taeyong pauses, waiting for Doyoung to confirm or deny. He does neither, but he does look up at him. "Are you a spirit?" 

"Something like that, I think." Doyoung looks away again, picking at the grass absently. He takes care to avoid the patch of newborn flowers. "Maybe I'm not anything. I'm just myself." Then he looks up. "Why are _you_ here?" He gives Taeyong a brief once over. "You seem sad. Were you hoping to find some kind of peace in the woods?" 

Peace isn't exactly the word Taeyong would use to describe what he wants, but it's accurate enough. "Is it obvious I feel terrible?" he asks with a shy smile.

"Your dark circles are deep," Doyoung says it like there's an obvious connection between his complexion and his current feelings. It probably is, in another sense.

"I didn't mean to come here. I just...started going and didn't stop." 

Doyoung's fingers are still in the grass, and his eyes suddenly take on a heavy quality, like turning to stone. "Nobody's been here in a long time, you know. A child was lost here once, and everyone's steered clear since."

Taeyong thinks about wildly unkempt grass fields and barely legible text on rotting wood. "People have been superstitious lately, what with all the unexplainable events going on. There are a lot of places around Incheon that have been deserted because of stuff like that." 

Doyoung's eyebrows furrow and his eyes squint, as if Taeyong had said something inaccurate, but he doesn't comment on it. "It's been lonely." 

Taeyong gives a bitter smile at that. "I've been feeling lonely too." 

They lapse into silence then, and Taeyong feels something lift from the burden on his heart. It's not much, but it's something, and he does feel slightly better for it. He lets himself fall backwards into the grass, spreading out his arms and legs like he's poised to make a snow angel. He decides it's uncomfortable and instead shifts to lay on his side, knees brought up to his chest and his head cradled in his arms. From here he can see Doyoung's fingers up close where they're back to playing with the grass. 

The thought that Doyoung might do him harm doesn't even cross his mind as sleep starts to overtake him. Something else does cross his mind, though.

"Will you still be here if I leave and come back?" 

"I will," he answers. "I think I'll always be here."

The last thing he thinks about before he succumbs to exhaustion is the twinge of sadness in Doyoung's voice as he says it.

When Taeyong wakes up, he's immediately blinded by the sun peeking over the horizon. He moves to sit up, the muscles in his legs violently protesting the motion, and is momentarily confused when he's greeted with the view of wilderness. 

Then it all comes rushing back. 

Taeyong's eight-year-old self is jumping for joy right now, he thinks, having finally experienced a supernatural event firsthand. The supernatural in question is nowhere to be found when he surveys his surroundings, and a pang of disappointment strikes him with surprising intensity. It's gone as soon as it comes. 

He stands up slowly, wobbling on sore legs to a nearby tree to support himself. He thinks about the trek he'll have to make from the middle of Hanatan back to the university campus and cringes. His phone is dead, so Uber isn't an option, and even if it was he still has his bike to take care of. 

Taeyong sighs and casts his eyes toward the rising sun. In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. Like Jaehyun had instructed the night before. He's dreading having to return to the emotional and academic ennui of university life, but he can't afford to be any more irresponsible than he's already been. Out of the corner of his eye he spots movement, gaze pathing to a small flurry of moths gathered at the end of a wayward branch sticking out into the clearing. Pale green, almost white, they come to a standstill the longer Taeyong watches them. The shape of their wings remind him of stingrays. 

They don't really seem inclined to move again, so Taeyong counts down from three in his head and sets off.

  
  
  
月  
  


The clock in his room reads 9:45 when he gets in, and he isn't even sure if he has legs anymore. He collapses onto his bed, not even bothering to kick off his shoes or change his clothes. He lays there for about ten minutes before mustering enough willpower to at least find his charger and plug his phone in.

It doesn't seem like Johnny is home to chastise him, so he lets himself pass out once more on top of his bedsheets. 

When he awakes again, he doesn't even bother opening his eyes before he sticks out a hand and blindly reaches for his phone. He gives up when he can't find it, taking in an annoyed breath before opening his eyes.

The sight he's greeted with makes him wonder if he's still dreaming. His point of view has shifted, now looking down on the room from up above. The floor is several feet beneath him, and after casting a panicked look around the rest of the room, he realizes he's _floating._ He watches his keyboard rotate gently, pushed by the warm air blowing from the vents. The sheet music resting on the music stand has been pushed around more violently, spread out across the room, and he spends a solid five seconds thinking about how tedious it's going to be sorting all of the pages back together. 

Really, it looks like there's going to be a lot of reorganizing in _general._ Taeyong pulls himself from where the ceiling and his mattress are pressing him in, and he sends himself flying into a nearby lamp as he misjudges how much force was needed to pry himself free. At this new angle he can see Johnny's collection of cologne and stuffed animals collected into a small mass above his dresser. 

Summoning what knowledge of physics and zero-gravity atmospheres from the one AP course he took in high school, he swings his arms around him in an attempt to turn around and find his phone. He spots it near the floor, its charging wire keeping it rooted to the outlet. Lightly bracing his feet on the ceiling, he kicks off toward the ground and lands nearby where it's suspended in the air.

Just as he reaches for it, the door to the dorm opens. 

"What the…" he hears Johnny say.

"I wouldn't come in here if I were you!" Taeyong shouts. He jerks his phone from its power chord and tries to manoeuvre himself towards the front door. The attempt doesn't amount to very much.

"What the hell? Taeyong?" 

"I don't know what the fuck is happening," he calls. With enough flailing Taeyong manages to get a grip on the corner of a wall and propel himself to the door. Johnny stands in the open entryway, staring in awe at the furniture floating around in mid air, He reaches out to Taeyong, grabbing his wrist and pulling him out of the room. He lands on his feet in the hall, thankful for the sudden return of gravity and the lovely way it keeps his feet firmly rooted to the ground. He clings tightly to Johnny's arm even after he's regained his balance. 

"Is everything in there fucking _floating?"_ Johnny asks him in disbelief. Taeyong can tell he wants to step inside and investigate for himself, but he has some sense not to. 

"Yeah. I seriously have no idea. I just woke up with my back pressed to the ceiling along with everything else."

"Has there ever been a supernatural event like this?" Johnny asks half to Taeyong, half to himself. He has no idea, so he doesn't bother answering.

They report the lack of gravity in their room to the RA, who then calls the police, and within an hour there are several news trucks outside of their dorm building along with a crowd looking on to see what all the commotion is, and Taeyong just feels exhausted all over again. He doesn't catch a break for the next couple of hours though, as the authorities ask him loads of questions, most of which Taeyong can't answer because he was very much asleep, but he tells them what he can. They take as many photos as they can, put him through a basic medical check up, and a bunch of other routine supernatural investigation protocols before he's let free again. 

The university staff scrambles to find them a new room to live in (temporarily, they had said, with nobody knowing how long the zero-gravity atmosphere would persist) while their old room is taped off for the investigators. Knowing HR's efficiency (or lack thereof), Taeyong figures they're not going to have a place to stay for at least another day. With nowhere else to go until then, he and Johnny end up going to Jaehyun's apartment.

It's not Taeyong's preferred place to be, but he's definitely lacking a choice in the matter. Regardless, it still felt like way too soon to be dealing with his friends again—but truth be told, he doesn't even know why he bothers isolating himself when someone or something always ends up dragging him out of the house kicking and screaming anyway. 

Jungwoo, Jaehyun's roommate, ends up answering the door when they knock. He's only in his robes as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, and Taeyong watches them widen with surprise as he recognizes who his unexpected guests are. Too tired to breathe, he lets Johnny explain the situation briefly and Jungwoo lets them in without a word. He disappears into the kitchen while Taeyong and Johnny collapse on opposite ends of the couch in a huff. He hears the telltale sound of a running coffee machine from the kitchen, and he lets all the muscles in his body relax.

Jungwoo returns, somehow managing to carry four mugs of coffee at once, precariously balanced in his arms. Johnny takes his with a soft _thanks_ while Jungwoo sets the rest down on the coffee table. He takes a seat on a chair on the other end of the small living room.

"Is Jaehyun still asleep? He won't mind us being here, right?" Johnny asks, ever the humble guest. Even now he sits with his back slightly hunched and his legs pressed together, like he's trying to take up as little room as possible. Taeyong doesn't know why he bothers. Appearing unannounced at each other's residencies has been a common occurrence between them for years at this point. He might have known Jungwoo and Jaehyun for a few years more than Johnny, but that's negligible. 

"He is," Jungwoo says. His eyes are closed as he sips his coffee. "At least, I think he is. Maybe he's just in there on his phone sulking. I don't know." 

"Why would he be sulking?" Taeyong finds himself speaking up. Jungwoo doesn't immediately answer and he gets the feeling he's about to regret asking at all.

"He seemed a bit down after you ditched last night." he says serenely. Taeyong wants to roll his eyes at how deceivingly disinterested his tone is. It'd be easier for him if Jungwoo just chewed him out like he knows he wants to. 

"You left? When?" Johnny says, surprised, turning to him now. Taeyong takes a deep breath.

"I don't know. I wasn't there for very long, a little less than an hour. I wasn't feeling too good." It's not enough to wrap up the subject, but it's an attempt. 

"That's always your excuse," Jungwoo butts in, letting frustration seep into his voice. "You 'haven't been feeling good' for the last three months. If you were going to fuck off without us anyway, you shouldn't have come at all. I don't know why you've been avoiding all of us lately, but if you don't want to see us at all you should at least make it a clean cut." 

Irritation rears its ugly head in Taeyong's gut. "I didn't realize my presence was so absolutely necessary for your guys' continued existence," Taeyong says blandly. He understands where Jungwoo is coming from but he could at least be a little more diplomatic. "Everyone seemed to be having plenty fun without me anyway. And I'm not even saying that to make this a pity party. I'm pretty sure you and Jaehyun were the only people who noticed I was gone."

"That's not true and you know it," Jungwoo shoots back, but he doesn't give anything else to back it up. Taeyong _doesn't_ know, and he isn't going to kid himself into thinking he does. He doesn't hold their group together like he did three years ago, and he certainly isn't fond of whoever they've found to fill his space. 

"Tae, why is it so hard for you to understand that we care about you and want you around?" Johnny pipes up finally. "Is it something one of us did? We can't help you unless you communicate with us. Jaehyun _really_ wanted you to come to that party, he had been looking forward to it for weeks."

The thing is, Taeyong _does_ understand. Really, he does. He knows he's being cruel, shoving away their attempts at friendship with him, but he knows it's the least painful option for himself. The shame of inadequacy threatens to choke him most days, and it's only amplified by each new inside joke that goes over his head and each new person he's the last to be introduced to. He's heard the proverb about surrounding yourself with people who lift you up, and maybe that's what his friends were to him however many years ago, but now they're just stifling. 

It's not like he hasn't considered just being honest with them about this—but that's the crux of it. Somewhere along the line, and maybe it's just his own paranoia, he realized that he isn't sure his friends would take him seriously. The thought terrifies him. To be rejected by his own support system is quite literally his own self-imposed nightmare fuel. Hell, Jungwoo's mere teasing about Taeyong's pining after Yuta was enough to send him spiralling for the rest of the night. He's not emotionally stable enough for anything he says or does to be trivialized. It's embarrassing enough that his own insecurities have gotten in the way of trusting the people closest to him, but he's in too deep to untie that pile of knots right now. It's better to rely on himself, and only himself. That's his reasoning, and he's sticking to it. 

"I've just changed a lot more than I realized," he says, heaving a sigh and letting his eyes shut. It's a non-answer and they deserve better, he knows. He doesn't bother bracing himself for the spidery tendrils of guilt that constrict his throat. They're silent for a few heavy moments that threaten to crush Taeyong alive.

"Maybe you have," Jungwoo says. There's a finality to the line that doesn't sit right with him.

  
  
  
  
  


Their new room is ready later that afternoon, and with the help of the local authorities, they're able to move most of their belongings from their own room into it. Johnny doesn't say a word to him for the entire time they're resettling, and Taeyong can't stand it for very long. He spends some time picking out the right words, then a little more steeling himself up to actually share them.

But he never does. There's only so many times he can apologize, so many half-answers that aren't really answers at all he can give before his words become meaningless. Johnny's back is to him while he organizes his half of the closet and no matter how hard Taeyong wills something, anything, to come out of his mouth, they never do. So he resigns himself to setting up his desk space in the corner, taking the opportunity to discard old papers and inkless pens from his cup holder. 

He has his earbuds in scrolling through his email when something taps his shoulder. He looks up to see Johnny holding a Switch controller, a tentative smile on his face. Taeyong takes it. 

"You know, I didn't mention it when we were at Jungwoo's place, but you weren't at the dorm when I came in from the party." Johnny says some hours later, stretching his hands from the awkward grip of the tiny Switch controllers. Maybe they could pool some money and buy one of the bigger ones. 

"You didn't spend the night at Yuta's?" Taeyong asks, trying to sound casual. He knows where this conversation might head, and he isn't sure how much he wants to give away about his late night excursion to Hanatan Trailhead. He isn't sure if it's something defensive or if it's something protective just yet.

"No. I left when they started playing seven minutes in heaven, a little past midnight. You know how Yuta gets." 

Taeyong does. A blush creeps up his face when he remembers the last time they had played Seven Minutes with him around. Yuta's disheveled lavender hair and heady eyes were ingrained in his mind for weeks afterwards, and the despair that he hadn't been the one to put his hands all over him persisted likewise. 

"Yeah," Taeyong says. "I do." 

They're silent for a few moments before Taeyong realizes that Johnny is waiting for him to say something more. 

"I didn't want to go home, so I just kinda...rode around town," Taeyong says. Johnny raises an eyebrow with an accompanied smirk. 

"I see, I _see,"_ he says. He casts two suspicious glances left and right theatrically before leaning in conspiratorially. "And what _really_ happened to Lee Taeyong when he left one of the hottest parties in Incheon that Saturday night?" He holds a hand up to Taeyong's face, mimicking a microphone. For a moment he's flabbergasted, and in another he thinks Johnny might have somehow figured out he had met a supernatural, then what he's implying suddenly clicks. He affects an unbothered look and matches Johnny's smirk.

"Oh, you know. I don't kiss and tell," Johnny gives him an affectionate shove and Taeyong laughs. He doesn't mention how he came by way of his bike or how the only person he's wanted to have sex with in the past four years is one Nakamoto Yuta, and it feels a little like lying, but Johnny doesn't push it.

  
  
月  
  
  


Taeyong doesn't see Doyoung again for another week. University work has started to pick up the pace, with lab work and group projects and way too many _fucking_ pages to read, what the _fuck,_ keeping him preoccupied for twenty-five hours a day. Somehow, though, in between his eyes dropping out of his skull and his hands shaking from sleep deprivation (Taeyong is very, _very_ serious about keeping away from coffee), it seems like his relationships with Jungwoo and Jaehyun have mellowed out. Jaehyun had sent him an innocuous text in the middle of the week inviting him over for a study session, and while he had been nervous to see him again after blowing him off at Yuta's party, Jaehyun doesn't seem to be holding a grudge at all. It makes him feel worse, if anything.

Still, Taeyong had forgotten how comfortable Jaehyun's presence made him in general. Even back in high school, Taeyong had always understood "group study session" as "an excuse to do anything _but_ study'. With Jaehyun though, it's like all of the tension just drains out of his system and he can actually focus on his lab reports. Sometimes he'll look up to see Jaehyun chewing on the tip of his pen or twirling the ends of his hair in thought, and it's oddly heartwarming. 

Jungwoo had been out for most of that afternoon, so it was just them and the peaceful almost-silence of Jaehyun's bedroom. At some point Jaehyun had gotten bored and decided to distract Taeyong for the next hour by showing him memes on his phone, and it was all too easy to descend on his bed in a sea of giggles. Normally he wouldn't allow himself to be so distracted, but he had gotten enough work done, and part of him wants to indulge Jaehyun. 

That had been three days ago, and his heart still felt lighter than it has in weeks. It's Saturday again now, the moonlight a little more subdued than it had been a week ago. It rests in the sky in a perfect semicircle and the sky is clear enough for Taeyong to see its darker other half if he tries hard enough. 

The trek to Hanatan Trailhead is just as tranquil as it had been the first time once he leaves the city limits. The coarse two-lane road is still completely empty, the dark fields of tall grass still rise up on either side of him like nature's cradle. 

He finds Doyoung sitting cross legged on the edge of the clearing when he pushes through the brush. He turns around when he hears him.

"You came back," he says. There's no emotion behind it—it's just a statement. 

"Did you think I wouldn't?" Taeyong says, taking a spot beside him. He lets his legs dangle over the edge like Doyoung had been doing when they first met, and his stomach turns at the drop below. 

"It's been a long time," he responds. He's looking at Taeyong with apprehension, like he's not quite sure if he's pulling his leg. "You asked if I'd still be here, so I thought you would come again soon."

Right, Taeyong did say that. Whoops. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting, then." Doyoung doesn't say anything to that. His head tilts up to the sky instead, eyes trained on the collection of stars. They're brighter than Taeyong is used to; this far out from the city, there's hardly any light pollution to stifle them. 

They're not what Taeyong's really paying attention to, though. At this angle Doyoung's face is partly lit by the drowsy moonlight, gentle shadows falling on his eyelids and the upper portion of his cheek. He's deathly still where he is—not in an unnerving or unnatural way, but one that gives him the impression of a marble statue. A sculpture made to impress, a single moment of a person's life stuck in time. The ambience feels the same way, not even a rustle of the nearby flora or the call of a nightjar to give the impression that time hasn't inexplicably frozen. The thought is oddly appealing, and Taeyong imagines that there's a thin veil separating them from the outside world, that this is their own private garden of solace. 

Privacy, of course, implies the existence of something else that may impede upon it—the thought distresses Taeyong more than it should, but he tries not to let it show even though Doyoung isn't looking at him. He kind of wants to say something, anything to start a conversation so that Doyoung can distract him from his own thoughts, but he shoves it all down. He shouldn't be selfish with a space that isn't his. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, rests his cheek on the top of his knee, and watches.

"Do you ever get the feeling that there's a destiny out there waiting for you, something bigger than your own skin?" Doyoung breaks the silence after a time. His voice still sounds hoarse.

"Not really." Taeyong answers honestly. He can't remember the last time he had allowed himself to succumb to wild flights of fantasy. "It's easier to stick with what's predictable. You can't predict your destiny." 

"No, I guess not. That wouldn't be fun, would it?" Doyoung hums, but he doesn't sound fully convinced by his reasoning. His eyes are still trained on the night sky, almost reverent. 

"But sometimes," Doyoung continues, "If I sit still enough, this feeling comes over me, like something is telling me to become more, to _transcend._ I never know what to do with it. It's overwhelming, sometimes." He slowly raises a hand while he talks, palm to the sky like he's reaching to touch something Taeyong can't see. From where he's sitting, he may as well be, because his eyes don't seem to be focusing on anything. 

"Is that how you feel right now?" Taeyong asks, lifting his head with only minimal aching in his neck. He mimes Doyoung, spreading his fingers against the heavens so that the stars fall in between them in uneven rows. 

"No," he says, dropping his hand. "Right now I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." Taeyong smiles at that, because it's a nice thought. 

"Even though you don't know why or how?" He says anyway.

"Yes, even despite that."

Taeyong isn't deterred. "Maybe that feeling is the end. That feeling of unapologetic existence could be your death knell, and you'd never even know."

"If that's the case, then I might've spent my entire life waiting for its end."

"Does it have to be an end?" Taeyong asks, the pseudo-intellectual gears of his mind starting to turn. "Maybe it can just be a rebirth. Maybe you're just shedding an old skin." Doyoung pauses for a few moments at that, silence stretching between them. Then he drops his hand and finally turns to Taeyong again.

"That sounds incredibly depressing." Taeyong tries and fails to stifle a laugh at how serious his expression is, and some of the tension in Doyoung's face falls. _He's not so hard to crack,_ he thinks. 

"But," he continues, "Maybe that's what I need. To shed an old skin." 

The longer Taeyong watches him, the harder he finds it to look away. It's not that Doyoung is ethereal or something similarly pretentious, but there's something so cold and disconnected in the way he speaks and moves that holds his attention. It's not exactly there, but his mannerisms approach the uncanny valley, pulling away just at the edge to remind Taeyong that he's a person. Mostly a person, anyway. He feels the urge to touch him suddenly, to see if his body is just as unfeeling as it looks, but he pushes it down. 

Somehow, he doesn't feel the need to rush anything. His life isn't going to completely disappear by his being here—even if he's going to wake up dead tired tomorrow and Johnny is probably going to ask where he was and he'll have to make up something exculpatory, it'll still be there for him. This is just a pause, a moment to recollect himself. He's allowed that much. He has to believe that or the guilt will eat him alive. 

The night passes in idyll, small almost-conversations lulling into silence and picking back up with one anecdote or another. They don't really talk about anything life changing or enlightening, but Taeyong manages to make Doyoung grin a few times, and that alone makes him feel like the sleep deprivation is worth it. 

Taeyong leaves when the sun rises, heavy eyelids somehow not enough to drag him down, and he's hardly aware of how Doyoung occupies his mind for the entire journey back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hanatan is a nice singer. go listen to her :] i particularly like her collab song with atols, called seika 生花


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which Yuta thinks he's the inquisitor

For better or worse, Taeyong's time for the next few weeks is split between schoolwork, spending time with Jaehyun, and visiting Doyoung. They're not divided into any equal increments of time whatsoever, but it's better than going to lectures and then wallowing in self pity in his room for the rest of the day. The only reason he thinks that is because Johnny is smiling at him more, and Johnny's always been there to keep him in check. His approval means he's doing something right.

He supposes he's earned enough of these approval points to be invited to a get-together with him and some other dance majors. What a "get-together" entails could be anyone's guess, though. 

"Is there going to be alcohol?" he asks after he's already agreed. Johnny looks at him like he's just grown another head. It's a few moments before he responds, and in that time Taeyong wonders if he had asked a question in another language without realizing. It seemed like a simple enough question.

"There's going to be _something,"_ he gives him finally, and he doesn't really know what to do with that information. He's up for a surprise, though. 

Or as it would turn out, several surprises.

The first would be none other than Mark Lee opening the door of the host's apartment to greet them when they knock. He looks just as surprised to see Johnny and Taeyong as they are to see him, but it fades quickly to that guileless admiration he's so used to seeing whenever he's around. 

"I didn't know you guys had been invited," he says, stepping aside to let them in, muttering a polite _Shoes off, please._ "Is this your first time?" 

"Is for me," Taeyong says. He's about to continue onward without his shoes, but stops and takes after Johnny when he sees him toeing off his socks as well. When in Rome, or something. 

"Second for me." Johnny says.

Mark leads them to a living room that's filled with so many lit candles of varying size, shape, and color that for a moment he fears the landlord is going to burst in here and fine the host for having such a flammable apartment. They seem to serve a purpose though, as there isn't a single source of artificial light that he can find in the room. In fact, the longer Taeyong looks around the more apparent the lack of anything utilitarian becomes. He can't find a single device that tells time nor a place to sit that isn't an earth-toned throw cushion laying on the intricate rug on the floor. A collection of Buddha and Fu Dog statues take up a large section of one corner surrounding one of those small artificial waterfalls Taeyong's always wanted. 

The small shrine has its own assortment of candles and shiny trinkets that glimmer in the excessive candlelight. The only piece of modern technology Taeyong can pick out is the small HD television and the PS4 resting beside it on the ground. The wire for the TV is plugged in while the console's cord lay in a sad pile beside it. It's a heart-wrenching sight.

Mark sinks into a cross-legged position in one smooth motion before reaching behind him to grab two cushions for Johnny and Taeyong. Something seems to show on Taeyong's face, because Johnny leans into his side. 

"Mark's been coming here for a long ass time," he says in a way Taeyong thinks is supposed to be explanatory. All of the questions that race through his head in response say otherwise. 

There's a handful of other people sitting around the circular rug chatting amicably, some with cushions, some without. He can only recognize a few of them: Dong Sicheng, a lanky Chinese exchange student who he should _really_ stop referring to as lanky if he doesn't want to get suplexed like Jungwoo had that one time, and one of Mark's friends whose name escapes his mind but whose youthful face and twisted tooth are impossibly charming. 

Someone comes into the living room and Taeyong is so taken by the myriad of rings and bracelets around the person's toes and ankles that he just barely notices the bronze censer he's carrying with both of his hands. He and Johnny scoot over to make room for him as he sets it in the center of the circle. The smell of rosemary and something musky he can't make out immediately fill his senses, so pungent that it momentarily makes him dizzy.

"That's Ten. This is his apartment." Johnny whispers to him while he's still trying to shake off his vertigo.

"Is that his real name?" 

Johnny shrugs.

Ten's ears are adorned with no less than four piercings in each alongside a silver hook that curves through his eyebrow and a hole on the bottom side of his lip that indicates a missing lip ring. He slots himself beside Mark and the chatter dies down immediately. 

"Hello everyone, Merry Christmas, and thank you all for coming. It looks like we have a new face here. Could you introduce yourself, please?" 

Taeyong is so preoccupied with dissecting how Ten's voice can be equal parts nasally but soothing that he realizes belatedly that he's referring to him. 

"This is Taeyong," Johnny says, picking up the ball. "I thought he might benefit from something like this. I hope you don't mind." 

"Not at all," Ten tells him, three words impossibly full of propriety. He turns to Taeyong then, smiling warmly. He's struck by the gentle intensity in his eyes. 

Really, everything from then on sort of feels like he's in a therapy office. Each of them are invited to speak about something that's been on their mind, as a way to "refresh", as Ten had said. At the end of each person's turn, others can choose to comment or offer insight if they so wish. Mark's friend—Renjun, he learns—starts off, and they move around the circle counterclockwise. Taeyong finds that he's actually pretty interested in what they all have to say, although he doesn't offer any commentary himself.

Most of them just talk about school or interpersonal relationships, some just talk about how their day went. Once more, he only realized belatedly that it's his turn to talk.

"There are some fields a little ways out from the city," he begins, no idea where the words came from. Vestiges of an old memory resurface, and he decides to run with it. "There was a story once, maybe fifteen years ago now. I was a kid when I had first heard of it, but a kid was out there with both of his parents one day. The parents looked away for a split second, and when they turned back, the kid had disappeared without a trace. The media was all over it—I mean, at least it seemed like it at the time. Everyone in my school was talking about it, anyway." He's looking at his hands while he talks, stuffy images of a news reporter on an old television screen and long afternoons spent reading books on paranormal activity and unsolved mysteries bubbling up from somewhere long forgotten. Everyone is staring back at him when he raises his head finally, like they're expecting him to keep talking. Or maybe they don't know what to say. He continues regardless.

"It's just been on my mind lately, what with all the supernatural events happening lately. That lost kid was just the beginning." Another pause. Then he adds quieter, "He would have been my age now, I think." He'd never really considered that before, but the thought makes him feel more somber than he'd expected. 

They're silent for a while and Taeyong is slowly filled with the fear that he may have made a faux pas. Was it too depressing a topic? He doesn't think he talked for very much longer than anyone else. A blush works itself up to his cheeks, and he just _really_ wants to leave right now. 

"We appreciate you sharing, Taeyong. I can tell it's important to you." Ten says. For a second Taeyong isn't really sure what he's talking about, but the more he thinks about it, the more accurate it sounds. That child's disappearance occupied such a large portion of his childhood. It feels odd that he had even forgotten about it. 

"Um," Mark speaks up eloquently. "My class had a discussion about that disappearance, once. Someone brought up evidence of an underground cult that had investigated it themselves, apart from federal intervention."

"Mark, now isn't the time for your conspiracy theories." Renjun speaks up with a frown. Mark flushes.

"Renjun, we won't know what Mark may or may not have been implying until we let him finish," Ten lightly admonishes. Renjun shrinks back into himself. Taeyong feels like there's some kind of psychic battle going on between them, and he's only mildly terrified. "Mark, please continue." 

"I was just reminded of that discussion is all. I really didn't mean anything by it." His tone is way too apologetic for Taeyong's comfort.

"I'm not offended or anything; it's not like I personally knew the kid." It was just an old memory. 

They move on after that, not as awkward as he feared it would be. Afterwards Ten brings them lemonade—at least Taeyong thought it was lemonade until he took a sip and was punched in the throat by the _very_ strong taste of alcohol. Ten laughs at his reaction.

"Vodka," he says by way of explanation. Then he seems to read his mind. "Mark and Renjun get tea."

"Good."

Whatever seriousness was in the air dissipates as the night wears on, and he doesn't think it's the alcohol because most of them have only taken sips. It sort of does end up being like a party, with each of them separating into smaller groups throughout the apartment, chatting and eating snacks and generally being amicable. Johnny's been out on the balcony with Ten for most of the night, so he sticks with Mark and Renjun who are setting up the unplugged PS4 after pushing all of the floor cushions together into one big pile. 

"Why aren't there any actual places to sit in here?" Taeyong asks once they're settled. 

"Ten just likes it that way," Mark says. "I tried to get him to buy a couch at first, but he was adamant on floor cushions. I got used to it. I don't know if I could ever be comfortable on a couch again at this point." 

"You live here?" Taeyong asks, incredulous. 

"Ten is my roommate." At Taeyong's raised eyebrows, he says "Don't worry about it." He's definitely going to, but not right now. Right now he's watching Mark and Renjun play Minecraft, half-heartedly listening to them bicker about where to build a house, what to build it with, and _Oh my god you fucking suck at this, give me the controller._

For whatever reason his mind keeps drifting to what Mark had said earlier about off-the-record investigations of the child's disappearance. It's on his mind all the way back to his dorm and it's the last thing on his mind before he falls asleep that night.

  
  
月  
  
  


The next time he sees Doyoung, their usual grassy clearing is considerably darker than it usually is. The moon is a mere slit now, giving off a faint light that slots in well with the rest of the stars. It's Christmas Eve, and the bittercold air doesn't seem to want Taeyong to forget that.

"Hi there," Taeyong says as he settles in the grass beside him. He still hasn't gotten used to the way they poke his skin through his jeans. "You're always sitting in the same spot whenever I come here. Do you really just sit here all day, all night?"

"I think I've explored every inch of these woods to be able to navigate them with my eyes closed." Doyoung's gaze slides off somewhere to the side where the sky touches the cityscape. "It's just that this has the best view of the sky on the entire trail. Being here feels...easy. Natural." he decides on. His eyes slink back to Taeyong's. "You feel natural here, somehow." Even with the moon's diminished presence, there's still a strain of white light in Doyoung's eyes that draw him in. He doesn't realize he's stopped breathing until he's forced to take an unnaturally deep breath.

"I do?" 

Doyoung nods. "I've watched the few people who have come here before. They say this place makes them nervous, or that something just feels _off._ The feeling is usually mutual until they leave. You never made me feel that way, though." Taeyong doesn't bother hiding his smile at that, and it's a few moments before Doyoung returns it, meek but sincere, and Taeyong really thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life.

"Would you ever show me around the forest?" Taeyong doesn't know why he says it or if it's something he's actually interested in. Doyoung's brows furrow slightly, like he's skeptical but not completely averse to the idea.

"Why?"

_Because I want to see more of you,_ is the first thing that comes to mind, but he's able to censor himself just in time. "Well, why should we stay in this one clearing when there's so much to explore? I know it won't be anything new to you, but who knows? You might stumble upon something you hadn't seen before with me around." Doyoung stares at him for several long moments before standing, holding out a hand to help Taeyong up, too. 

Taeyong isn't really sure what he was expecting when he took his hand—maybe something startlingly cold or otherwise unnatural—but he's surprised to find it's...just a hand. It's slightly warm to the touch and somewhat rough where their palms meet, and he thinks it's a good thing they weren't in contact for very long or else he might have done something regrettable. 

Doyoung, he comes to find out, can be _awfully_ talkative. It's not that he talks excessively; he's self-aware enough to give Taeyong room to respond when he wants to, but he's just taken aback at how much he has to say and how confidently he leads the conversation. The second they're out onto the trailhead Doyoung is pointing out oddly-shaped trees or unusually thin patches of bracken or animal tracks or places where the dirt path veers off-course that you wouldn't be able to see unless you _really_ looked. 

"Did you know," he says at some point after they've walked half a mile up the trail, "that most people never come up this far? The trees up this way grow so close together that their branches rub in the breeze. They say it sounds like screaming. I've never heard it myself, but whatever. People are so superstitious." 

"That's rich, coming from you." Doyoung sticks his tongue out at him and Taeyong laughs because it's terribly cute. 

"Anyway, it's kind of a shame. There are fruit trees that grow a little ways off the path, but most of them end up falling off and rotting. There aren't enough animals to eat them, and nobody comes to pick them."

"Do _you_ pick them?" Taeyong asks. Doyoung turns to look at him looking somewhat addled.

"No. I...guess I never felt the need to?" The way his sentence pitches up at the end is so unlike his usual impassive tone, and Taeyong tries to commit the sound to memory. He wonders what it is about Doyoung that makes every one of his idiosyncrasies seem like the most interesting things on Earth. "I can't believe I never thought of that." 

Doyoung tugs the sleeve of Taeyong's coat, leading him off of the dirt path and into the undergrowth. Taeyong tries to keep up with him through the brush, but the grass is thicker and the bushes even more hell-bent on tripping him. Doyoung is a little ways ahead of him, still within sight but his steps decidedly more composed than Taeyong's even on such uneven terrain. 

"Do you not need to eat?" he asks once he's caught up again. Doyoung absentmindedly brushes off some burrs that caught themselves on Taeyong's jacket. 

"I could if I wanted to, I think. If I ever got bored." 

Taeyong nods sagely. "I eat when I'm bored, too." They come to a stop at a persimmon tree, its gangly branches drooping with the weight of them hanging in messy rows. Taeyong doesn't think he's seen so many fruits on a tree in his life. The grass around them is littered with half-rotting persimmons, splatters of orange across green that remind him of fall. Doyoung reaches up to grab one, snapping its stem off the main branch and handing one to Taeyong.

"It tastes like grass," he says after biting it, wiping juice that threatens to fall from the side of his mouth. 

"Have you been eating grass recently?" Doyoung asks with a teasing smile. Taeyong gives him a playful shove.

"You know what I mean. It's good, though. Just different." 

"Different can be good." Taeyong couldn't agree more. 

The end of Hanatan Trailhead loops around in a wide circle before rejoining the main path back down. At this point their conversation has turned to something more casual, though Taeyong's definition of 'casual' seems to vary from most people's. Ceaseless banter and meaningless discussion of the metaphysical may be an odd combination, but it's what makes him appreciate Doyoung more as he finds out he can match his wit and conversational eccentricities nigh-perfectly. He hasn't felt this mentally stimulated in months, and it's damn _exciting._ More and more Doyoung is starting to feel less like a weird forest spirit and more like a friend.

It seems like the feeling is mutual too—at least he hopes it is. Taeyong takes note of the way Doyoung's shoulders have relaxed, how his gait is much more laid-back. He likes him like this, composed and carefree and uncensored. He hadn't even realized how constantly high-strung he was until now, if the ease with which emotions move across his face while they talk is anything to go by. 

"Something I miss," Doyoung tells him, "is my guitar. Someone left theirs here in the forest one time—it was a long time ago, really. But they never came back for it, so I kept it for myself. I didn't know anything about music, but it was still fun to mess around on." Then he smiles, eyes cast to the ground, like he's recalling an old memory. "I remember thinking I was so good. I probably wasn't, but it was fun." 

He pauses for some moments, still smiling to himself. He's never seen his smile at this angle before. "Then one day I set it down somewhere, and when I came back for it, a tree had fallen right where I set it down." 

Taeyong whistles. "That's unlucky."

"It was." His smile falls then, and something frantic takes root in Taeyong's chest.

"I have an old guitar I'm not using, if you want. I wouldn't mind teaching you how to play again." It had been an old gift from his aunt when he had graduated high school. He played it enough to be decent, but he had always preferred piano. It's collecting dust in his closet to this day.

"No, that's okay," Doyoung says ducking his head slightly, and oh, there's that meekness Taeyong is so familiar with. "It would be a waste of time."

"It wouldn't be. I want you to have it. Seriously. It's Christmas, you know." 

"I don't celebrate Christmas. Also, no."

"Why?" 

"Because I said _no,_ that's why," he says with unexpected severity before deflating. "Really, it was just an old memory. It's not important." 

Taeyong frowns. "It's not unimportant just because it's a memory," he says gently. "If it made you smile, then it's worth something."

Doyoung thinks about that for a few moments before responding in a small voice. "Maybe. But what's past is past. I'd rather look forward to something new." 

Taeyong can't really argue with that, he supposes. Doyoung's brows are furrowed in thought again, even when he steals a glance at Taeyong out of the corner of his eye. He tries to affect as kind an expression as possible, something to let him know he's not upset, and it pays off when the tension in Doyoung's face disappears and he gives a small smile.

"It's still an hour or so until sunrise," Doyoung tells him once they return to the clearing. Taeyong is impressed that he can tell where they are in the darkness of the forest roof. "In case you were wondering. Is there a reason you stay here so late all the time, anyway?"

"Believe it or not, I don't actually enjoy being on my college campus all that much." Taeyong says. He's really not looking forward to the empty dormitory, with most of the students gone celebrating the holidays with their families. Johnny had left a few days ago, and though his dorm felt lighter somehow, it's uncomfortable knowing nobody is going to be coming back at the end of the day for at least another week. 

Taeyong collapses onto the grass with a loud groan, his legs protesting any more movement. Doyoung sits down beside him. 

"And being out in the middle of a forest past midnight in the dead of winter is preferable?" 

"Honestly? Yeah." 

He's expecting more criticism, but instead Doyoung just laughs. It's not the first time he's heard it at this point, but he's still struck by how beautiful a sound it is.

"Well, I'm glad you decided to come here to get away from it all. It's nice when you're around." 

  
  
月  
  
  


Taeyong rides the high of _It's nice when you're around_ for the rest of the holiday break, even after classes return and he's pulled into the counselling office to be told he's being put on academic probation.

"Is something going on in your life right now, Taeyong? Your grades are _abysmal,"_ the academic advisor says, and it only stings a fraction of how he thought it would. It's not like he had ever made valedictorian, but he'd always set the standard of 'slightly above average' for himself. Right now, his 2.3 GPA is mocking that standard. He tells the counselor whatever it is that'll let him go fastest so he can return to laying face-down on his bed for the next couple of hours. 

There isn't really any way around it. He knows he's been slacking, and there's no one to blame but himself for that. Even the periods of exultation following his time with Doyoung don't really seem to translate to anything worthwhile outside of his own feelings—which although he hadn't expected such, is still a rather disappointing realization to come to. 

It's that feeling of failure he's trying to avoid at Mark's apartment, laying on his back with his legs resting vertically against the wall, hands folded over his stomach. He watches Mark working at his desk from his bed upside-down. He hadn't really meant to come here in all honesty, but Johnny had gone out somewhere with Ten earlier and his dorm was quickly becoming insanity-inducing levels of stifling. Mark has this odd quality about him that puts others at ease, but his awkwardness pretty much tells Taeyong for certain that he isn't aware of that at all. Regardless, he was the first person to come to mind when he decided he needed to be anywhere but in his dorm.

Mark's room is childishly charming, in the same way Mark's entire being could be described as such. His desk is lined with colorful Gundam figurines which surround one of those expensive looking desktop monitors, the kind that curves inward for immersion, or something. The PC resting at his feet under his desk has a see-through case that cycles through all the colors of the rainbow intermittently. His walls are lined with posters of various music groups; most of them are American with names Taeyong doesn't recognize, but there are some familiar ones too, namely the slightly tilted TVXQ! poster that's pinned just above his bed's headrest. 

Fandom-related merchandise aside, his room is terribly neat; really, it wouldn't be a stretch to say it was _pristine._ Taeyong feels like he's dirtying it up just by looking at it. 

"Do you remember how we first met?" Taeyong asks him out of the blue. Mark swivels his chair around to face him. 

"Like, formally?" he says. "I have no clue." 

"Me neither. I remember I had seen you around school a few times back in high school, but that's really it. It's just weird to think about how tangential you were in my life, but you kept showing up year after year, even after I graduated." Mark had quite literally been nothing more than a face he would see maybe twice a month in the halls of school, one he just happened to recognize every time in the sea of teenagers that shoved by each other to get to their next class. He wouldn't learn his name for another two years, during Taeyong's second year of university. Mark had been in attendance of one of Johnny's dance performances at the local theater along with Dong Sicheng and another exchange student who went by Felix. He remembers their theme had been culture clashes, or something similar. 

Felix had been in charge of driving Mark home from the school performance center that night, but for whatever reason Mark ended up being dragged along to a house party he was definitely at least four years too young to attend. All of the upperclassmen—Taeyong's peers—had been absolutely taken with him though, and Mark's been in the periphery of his social sphere ever since. 

Until now, it seems like. He never would've expected that the five-foot-two 9th grader who looked scared out of his mind at anyone and everything would one day become his emotional refuge.

Mark makes a thoughtful noise. "It _is_ kinda odd how our friend circles always happened to merge, huh?" 

Taeyong turns over suddenly, dropping his feet from where they've been stretched out. They were starting to go numb, anyway. "Do you believe in fate?" 

Mark pouts his lip, considering. "I think it's a nice concept...but it's not something science can prove, so whether or not I believe in it is sort of null." 

Taeyong sighs dramatically. "Well, you're no fun. There's more to life than what can be explained with numbers." Mark just laughs.

"I guess you've got a point, especially with what happened to you a few weeks back." A pause. "Did they ever figure out how to make gravity work there again?" 

"Hell if I know," Taeyong says. He'd rather not think about that day. 

"But, I mean...the whole idea of soulmates and predestination—I can definitely see the appeal. It's just sort of hard to wrap my brain around, you know?" Taeyong hums the affirmative. "What makes you ask?" 

There's a lot Taeyong could say in response to that. He could come completely clean with his discovery of Doyoung at Hanatan Trailhead, with how he feels like the first breath of fresh air he's had since he moved out of his parents' house, with how his eyes seem to gleam even when there's no light strong enough to reflect that strongly back at Taeyong. With how he has no idea how he came to haunt those woods, how he doesn't feel the need to eat even though he seems to be just as human as Taeyong, how there's so much he wants to learn about him but he doesn't even know where to begin to ask. He could be totally, completely honest with how enraptured he is at all the mysteries that surround him.

But he doesn't say any of that. His heart has a death grip on Doyoung—he wants to keep him to himself, lest the idea of him be tainted by the bleakness of Taeyong's life. 

"I was just thinking about that underground cult you had mentioned before," he says. It's definitely not a lie, so he runs with it. 

Mark suddenly perks up at that, eyes going wide. "Oh. Were you interested in that? I could tell you a lot more if you wanted." 

His fixation on the tidbit of information had mostly faded by now, by Mark seems excited, and Taeyong suddenly understands why everyone seems to enjoy indulging him all the time. "Yeah, if you wouldn't mind sharing." 

Mark turns back around to his computer and begins pulling up a myriad of notes, sensational articles, maps, and scans of yellowing ancient Chinese documents. Taeyong grabs a stool from the side of his dresser and takes a seat beside him, Mark scooting over a tad so that they both fit. 

"Have you heard of The Vision?" Mark starts off. Taeyong shakes his head. "People call them a cult, but they're really more like...a group of people really passionate about a very niche, very ancient doctrine."

"Sounds like most religions to me." 

"Well, yeah. Anyway, this doctrine they follow—essentially they think that humanity should go back to living 'traditionally', which could really mean anything to anyone, but to them it means complete capitulation to the natural and supernatural. That's a direct quote from their manuscript, which historians think dates back to the Han dynasty."

"The natural and _supernatural?_ " Taeyong asks. Mark nods.

"I know what you're thinking, and I had the same thought. But as far as academia is concerned, the Vision is just a collection of backwards lunatics."

"Tragic."

"Uh-huh. Anyway, the modern day Vision members took matters into their own hands. I'm sure you don't want the scientific jargon—which I could spout if you really wanted to hear, but I don't think you do—so I'll try to put it in layman's terms." 

From what Taeyong understands from Mark's explanation, these Vision people (Visionaries, they call themselves) calculated the approximate area of where there was a buildup of "celestial energy" (whatever the fuck that means) and found that it coincided quite well with Hanatan Trailhead and the surrounding fields. Taeyong is trying really hard to keep the skepticism from his face, but Mark still picks up on it.

"I know it sounds like bull, but I did some research of my own, and there's an insane amount of mythological stories and creatures that originate down by Hanatan and the surrounding area. If there really is some kind of mystical energy around there, it definitely has a history." 

Taeyong supposes it's not really his place to believe in celestial magic or not, considering gravity stopped working in his room and his room early just a few weeks ago. Anything's game at this point. 

"What kind of mythological creatures are native to Hanatan?" he asks out of curiosity. 

"Well, most of them seem to be some variation of a protective spirit." Mark tells him, pulling up a scan of another crumbling scroll. On it is a sumi-e ink painting of a white rabbit surrounded by trees, with a huge white circle above the leaves that Taeyong assumes is supposed to be a moon. Mark clicks through a gallery of similar paintings depicting various animals, all with an unusually large moon hanging above the scene. They seem to tug at Taeyong's heart strings, begging for sympathy. 

"What's any of that have to do with the child's disappearance, though?" he asks. Mark twiddles his thumbs.

"Well, I don't really know. The Visionaries seemed to think there was a connection, though." 

Taeyong doesn't know why he feels as disappointed as he does. Again, Mark seems to pick up on his mood quickly. 

"But, I mean—don't get too down about it. You could always go and find them yourself. Maybe they'll dispense upon you their divine knowledge." Mark waggles his fingers as he says the last part, and Taeyong can't help but smile at his attempt to cheer him up, even if it mostly falls flat. 

  
  
月  
  


The Vision is on his mind for the entire bike ride back to campus. He's so lost in thought that he just barely swerves out of the way before crashing into someone, and it's then he finally takes in his surroundings. The courtyard is a lot more crowded than it usually is, and he realizes it's because there's a crowd of people surrounding something he can't see. Taking his bike with him, he finds a sparse section of the congregation and pushes his way through.

It's a hole. Well, it's less of a hole and more of a slit, but the semantics aren't as important to Taeyong right now as the fact that it's a hole that's floating in the air, as if someone had taken an axe and cut straight through the fabric of existence. It's so pitch black that it literally just looks like a smudge of charcoal on paper, but there's an odd depth to it that gives the impression of a deep, dark pit. It's high enough to be eye level with him, and if he listens closely, it's emitting a low but steady hum.

Taeyong stares at it until his eyes start to water. It looks so _unreal_ that he can't peel his eyes away. Setting his bike down on the ground, he takes a few steps around it, breaking the few yards of distance everyone is putting between themselves and it. No matter what angle he views it from, the darkest part of the slit stays facing him, as if it's following him. _The abyss stares also into you,_ he thinks. The hair on his arms rise 

From the corner of his vision he sees someone else push their way to the front of the crowd. He recognizes Yuta's profile immediately, the lavender streaks he's added to his bleached hair after that, and then the long stick he's carrying as he approaches the hole. He notices Taeyong staring at him and pauses, waves.  
  


"Come to witness history?" he asks when Taeyong comes up to him. The people in the front of the crowd have drawn their phones now, recording. Taeyong looks at the stick Yuta is wielding.

"You're going to poke it," he states more than asks. Yuta nods. 

"You should step back in case something happens."

Taeyong rolls his eyes and takes a small step to the side, still remaining by his side for the most part. He supposes he _is_ curious. 

Yuta grips the stick at the base of one end, strikes a pose that Taeyong thinks is supposed to mimic Bruce Lee with his stance wide (he wishes he could find Yuta's constant need to perform obnoxious instead of cute), and slowly pokes the stick into the hole. 

...Nothing happens. It slides right in as if there was nothing there at all. What were the odds everyone here right now was sharing the exact same hallucination?

Yuta pushes the stick in deeper until half of it is completely obscured by the murky nothingness, then pulls the entire thing out. It looks completely normal—there's nothing on it to indicate that it had entered the void and returned unscathed. Yuta straightens his posture and frowns.

"That's no fun." He holds the stick out towards Taeyong. "Wanna try?" 

Taeyong kind of does, but he doesn't show it. He crosses his arms and looks at Yuta with disapproval. Yuta shrugs. 

"Suit yourself." Yuta drops the stick then and turns back to the hole.

Before anyone can do anything about it, Yuta lifts a hand and presses it into the cut in the air. The entire crowd gasps and Taeyong's eyes widen, but he doesn't move. Yuta's face goes blank for a moment before he smiles bashfully. 

"It kind of… tickles?" he says. He waves his arm up and down as if he's feeling around for something. "It doesn't really feel like there's any—" 

Before he can finish his sentence, a huge bubbling mass erupts from the murk without preamble and rushes up Yuta's arm. Finger-like extremities branch out from the black nothingness, grabbing at Yuta's jacket and _pulling._ He jerks himself back with a shout to no avail—he ends up stumbling, fighting against whatever monster is trying to drag him in. He claws at the dark mass, but whatever he's able to peel from his arm only replaces itself as soon as it's able. 

Several people in the crowd scream, and Taeyong's only half aware of the sound of people fleeing. Before he can think twice about it he's grabbing at Yuta's torso, hooking his arms just under his armpit and pulling with all his might. He's able to stop Yuta from being dragged any further, but they end up stuck in a stalemate, neither them nor the monster budging.

Careful to keep his grip, Taeyong digs his heels into the ground and tugs _harder._ Beside him Yuta regains his balance and does the same. His arms burn with the effort, but together they're able to gain a little bit of purchase—still not enough to free Yuta. 

Taeyong thinks his arms are about to completely give out when suddenly the dark mass lets go of Yuta, withdrawing back into the hole with a flourish. Both of them go flying backwards without any force to oppose them, skidding across the rugged concrete and landing in a heap. 

Yuta sits up from where he collapsed on Taeyong with a grunt, then a soft cry of pain when he tries to use the arm that had been accosted by the hole. Alarms go off in his head at the sound and he immediately moves to take off his coat. Yuta hisses and tries to jerk away at the scrape of fabric against his arm, but Taeyong holds him still.

"Don't move, oh my god," he says. Once he's peeled the sleeve off as gently as possible, he finds that Yuta's arm is almost completely red, with some deeper red stripes running across his forearm like someone had a death grip on it. He brushes it gently with his index finger and Yuta hisses again, but doesn't pull away. 

"Come on," he says. "Let's get you to the nurse." He helps Yuta up with his other hand and almost gets pulled down himself; his arm seems to have lost all its strength. Draping Yuta's jacket over his shoulders, he keeps a light grip on his other arm as he guides him through the thin crowd of people still watching. He kind of wants to scream at them in frustration, but Yuta doesn't need that right now. He needs composure and leadership. Taeyong can do that for him, at least. 

Yuta is crying silently while they wait in the nurse's office, and he doesn't know if it's from pain or shock. He has this angry look on his face, but it doesn't seem to be projected at anything external—he's so lost in thought he doesn't even notice Taeyong's staring at him. He's trying really hard to hide the shaking of his hands, but Taeyong still catches it. Taeyong doesn't think twice about pulling the sleeve of his jacket over his hand and wiping the tears away. Yuta looks at him with surprise, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. Taeyong waits for the flutter of his heart to come. It never does. 

The university nurse flinches when she finally sees to Yuta's arm, and it looks like she has half a mind to call the hospital, but she seems to change her mind when she sees how exhausted he and Taeyong are. She treats it like a burn, applying cooling ointment to the entirety of it (Taeyong counts five and a half of the small tubes of topical cream to cover the extent of the damage) and wrapping most of it with an elastic cloth before finally sticking it in an arm sling. She instructs him to come back to have it changed and cleaned twice a day, or have someone do it for him if he can't make it all the way to campus. 

He nods wordlessly after everything she says, hardly looking up from his lap the entire time. Taeyong just watches with furrowed brows, unsure of what to do. 

"Will you be okay on your own?" he asks Yuta once they're dismissed. He moves to shrug, then winces at the effort. His scowl deepens. 

"I don't know." he says tonelessly. Part of him suddenly feels irritated at his obstinance, but pity quickly overcomes it.

"Do you have anyone to take care of you?" 

Yuta shakes his head. "I live alone."

In Taeyong's mind, the next words that come out of his mouth seem like the absolute best thing he could say. "Let me take care of you, then." He affects as serious an expression as possible. Yuta looks at him quizzically. 

"Are you sure you want to do that?" he asks slowly. Taeyong nods. "You really don't have to."

"I want to," he tells him, trying not to sound too forceful but letting Yuta know he means it. He still looks skeptical.

"Seriously. It's fine, Taeyong." he says, a small smile finally breaking his stern countenance, like he finds Taeyong's insistence funny. "I think I'd just like to just lick my wounds in privacy." 

The rejection doesn't feel as bad as he thought it would. "Okay, fine. Didn't realize your pride was mangled as well." 

Yuta laughs. "Fuck off." They part ways there, and Taeyong feels like he should have done or said more, but he can't think of anything else to say in the face of Yuta's adamance.

Taeyong is finishing up an overdue lab report some hours later when he gets a text from an unknown number. He's gotten a lot of texts from a lot of different people, in fact, but for once he's letting the responsible part of his brain take charge and pushing through his schoolwork before responding to any of them. He doesn't usually get texts from people that aren't bots, though, so he gives in to curiosity and opens the message.

_Have you been seeing what everyones posting_

_The thing that came out of the hole in the sky is invisible in all of the videos people took_

_All you can see is us playing tug of war with nothing, lol_

_Yuta btw_

Taeyong reads the messages over and over, trying to understand the melancholy unfurling in his chest. How many nights had he lain awake trying to figure out a way to get Yuta's number that wasn't suspicious or weird? Trying to come up with any kind of conversation starter that would get Yuta to talk to him? This isn't how he wanted this to transpire.

Taeyong has read receipts turned off, so he powers off his phone and goes back to working on his lab report, willing himself to disappear so he doesn't have to think about Yuta anymore for the rest of the night.

By noon of the following day, he's been accosted by four different groups of people asking for more details about what had happened in the courtyard. He's pretty sure at least one of them was an undercover journalist, while two of them weren't even trying to hide it. He tries to answer their questions as best he can, but it gets exhausting quickly, having to repeat the same things over and over.

_Yes._

_No._

_I don't know._

_It wasn't my idea._

_I just happened to be there._

_Why don't you ask Yuta?_

_No, I'm not going to give you Yuta's number._

_No, I've never seen Full Metal Alchemist._

By the time the clock strikes one, Taeyong is fully convinced that university drastically lowered his capacity for social interaction. He doesn't bother dropping his bags off at his dorm before he pulls his hoodie up, hops on his bike, and absconds towards Hanatan. 

It's his first time coming here during the daytime. The forest seems so much more alive in the light of day; the greens are lighter, more welcoming and friendly than he thought they were capable of. It even smells different—there's a gentle breeze that pushes its way through the trees, carrying the fresh but earthy scent of fallen leaves camphor. 

He has half a mind to close his eyes and just enjoy the sound of nature as he walks, but he hears footsteps moving carefully through the bracken. Doyoung's head pops out from between the trees, smiling when he sees it's Taeyong. 

"It _is_ you!" he says jovially. He approaches Taeyong carefully still, looking him up and down like he can't believe he's really there. "You don't usually come when the sun's out."

Up close, he can see the leaves and small twigs caught in Doyoung's hair and on the cuts in the fabric of his clothes. He brushes them off, Doyoung sputtering as a dead leaf falls onto his lip. Taeyong laughs at the face he makes. 

"There's...a lot going on right now, at the university. It got tiring quickly." Doyoung looks like he wants to ask about it, but instead he just gets this look on his face, and it's pretty close to pure elation. He skips to Taeyong's other side, dodging around his bike, and links his arm with Taeyong's. He's so close like this, eyes are wide and hopeful, and the simmering in the pit of Taeyong's stomach is threatening to burn him alive. 

They walk and talk like they usually do. Doyoung is more bubbly than he's ever seen him. It's a side of him he didn't know he possessed, but it's far from unwanted. If anything it just makes it easier for Taeyong to make him laugh, and he exploits that fact as much as possible. It's mutual, really; Doyoung has such a loony sense of humor that almost all of his anecdotes seem like the peak of comedy. They end up collapsing into the dirt twice before reaching their usual clearing, folding over themselves in laughter at the most absurd scenarios that Taeyong doesn't even understand how they became the subject of conversation. 

"Oh my god," Taeyong pants, shoving his bike to the ground dramatically. "You're a fucking menace."

"I think you pronounced 'hilarious' incorrectly," Doyoung says. His face isn't even flushed.

"You're stupid."

"Yet you keep coming back," he points out. "Birds of a feather, I guess." 

They stretch out in the grass together, Taeyong spread eagle and Doyoung laying on his side facing him. They're silent for a while, just enjoying each other's presence and listening to the sound of the forest. For Taeyong, it's mostly the former.

He can't believe how lucky he was to meet Doyoung. Running off into the woods in the middle of the night in an attempt to stifle a panic attack and meeting a supernatural half-spirit really isn't how Taeyong generally spends his evenings, yet that's exactly where he had found himself those few months ago. 

And Doyoung is so, so much more than he could have asked for. 

Taeyong feels more at home with him than he's felt with Jaehyun or Jungwoo in months, maybe even _years._ He combs through his memories with them, the happiest and the gloomiest, trying to find out when that shift had happened; when they had grown so far apart that he could no longer relate to them. 

It might have been during their second year of college, when Yuta had been invited to one of their study groups on the second floor of the library, and he had slotted in so well with their group that Taeyong was too flabbergasted to even bother joining their antics. In fact, he thinks that had been the most productive "study group" of his life, even while Yuta and Jungwoo had been tearing paper from their notebooks, balling them up, and throwing them at each other. 

If he tries a little more recently, it might have been during summer, when Jungwoo and Jaehyun had started spending more time together. When they agreed to become roommates, Taeyong had felt nothing but relief. He hadn't realized how suffocating it had become spending time with them until he simply didn't have to anymore; they had each other, and Taeyong could finally have some time to himself. Johnny had been sad to see them move out of the dormitory, and Taeyong had willed himself to feel any semblance of heartache at their leaving. He never did, in the end. 

How odd it is growing away from people who once meant the world to you, he thinks. 

He may have been able to delude himself into thinking they were no longer friends in the past, but that simply isn't true. They may not even text each other most days, but he still considers them family, and he knows the feeling is mutual. 

Relationships change, and that's alright. It's only natural. 

Taeyong is so completely absorbed in his thoughts that he has to stifle a jolt when Doyoung speaks up again. 

"What's on your mind?" he says. His hand is moving up and down above the dirt, a small patch of white flowers rising and falling from the earth with the motion. Taeyong watches it for some moments before responding. 

"Do you really not remember anything about how you came to be here?" he asks, shaking thoughts of his friends from his head. He turns to face Doyoung, copying his posture. 

Doyoung looks taken aback, not expecting the question. Then his expression turns thoughtful. "I really don't. Suddenly I just... _was."_

"Do you know how long you've been here?"

Doyoung casts his eyes to the grass, brows furrowed in thought. "I was smaller before," he says, but his tone makes it seem like he's talking to himself. "Before, I couldn't reach up to the lowest branch. Before, the dirt path seemed so much wider than it is now." Then he rolls onto his back, hands folding onto his stomach. "Before, the grass fields were shorter. They were clean. Now, they're…" 

"Overgrown?" Taeyong suggests. Doyoung shakes his head.

"Haunted," he finishes, and the hair on Taeyong's arms raise. Doyoung glances over. "I don't mean literally. I mean...people talk about it like it's haunted. Like it's evil." He looks like he has more to say but is having trouble finding the right words. Taeyong is patient. 

"When enough people believe something, it starts to become true. In its own way." he finishes carefully, as if he's testing out each word on his lips for the first time. It's abstract, but it makes sense.

"I understand," he tells him. "We give the world around us meaning. There's a lot of power in that." Doyoung gives him a small smile, eyebrows turned up. 

"I'm glad you do, Lee Taeyong." The simmering heat is back when he says his name. 

"Do people think it's haunted because of the child that went missing?" Taeyong brushes his fingers across the petals of Doyoung's white flowers. They're soft, almost delicate. They don't glow in the sunlight the way he's used to them when the moon is full. Now, they look fragile, like the sun alone is enough to make them shrivel up and die. 

Doyoung shrugs. "You'd know better than me, honestly. You're the first human I've actually spoken to in…" he trails off. His eyes glaze over like he's suddenly caught in an old memory. He shakes his head and it's gone. "Years." 

Taeyong sits up at that. "You've been this alone for _years?"_

Doyoung sits up too. "You have to understand...this—form, I guess, it's new to me. Before, I was...everywhere." Taeyong doesn't like how Doyoung is finding it more and more difficult to find the words he needs. It makes him nervous. "Today, when you came, I could feel you here—but _I_ wasn't here. I was just...part of the forest. Watching over it. Until I wasn't."

Taeyong is finding this a little hard to wrap his head around, but he wants so badly to understand what Doyoung is trying to say. He wants him to feel comfortable with him. His hand finds its way to Doyoung's, slotting their fingers together where they lay in the grass. Doyoung looks up at him, expression unreadable. 

"I don't know why it feels so natural to be human, now." Taeyong squeezes his hand, comforting. At least he hopes it comes off that way.

"A lot of things are changing, it feels like." Taeyong tells him. "Maybe you're shedding an old skin after all." Doyoung smiles, recalling their past conversation too. 

"A rebirth," he says quietly. 

With that they lull into a comfortable silence, and Taeyong makes the careful decision not to comment when Doyoung leans over to rest his head on his shoulder. 

Taeyong gets a call from Yuta when the sun starts to set—at least he assumes it's Yuta, because the number hasn't been saved, and he's _very_ careful about who he gives out his phone number to. Doyoung stares at his vibrating phone like it's an affront to his very existence. 

Yuta's asking him to come over to his apartment to help change the bandaging on his arm. He sounds bashful as he asks, and Taeyong has an inkling that Yuta really hates asking for help. He agrees anyway, because he understands what it's like coming to terms with the fact that you can't go through life alone forever. Also, the thought of Yuta struggling to undo his bandaging all by himself fills him with a motherly panic he didn't know he could feel. 

Taeyong hugs Doyoung goodbye, promising to visit him again soon. They hang onto each other for a long time, and Taeyong loves the way that Doyoung's head seems to slot perfectly into the crook of his neck. His hair carries the faint scent of camphor where it tickles just under his nose and all he can think is _'This is bliss.'_

  
  
  
月

When Yuta answers the door, his face is flushed and pieces of the fabric around his arm are torn at the edges. 

"Thank god you're here," he says, moving aside to let Taeyong in. "I seriously feel like my arm is about to fall off." 

Yuta's apartment feels bigger when it's not filled with people trying to get drunk, but the hanging lights on every surface still set the mood exactly as it did at his party back in November.

Yuta leads him into his bathroom, where there's already a pair of scissors laying out on the counter. Taeyong raises an eyebrow at him. Yuta does the same. Taeyong relents. 

Peeling the bandage from Yuta's arm is easy enough. Taeyong appreciates that he's at least being patient while he's careful not to jostle his arm too much. Once the bandage is completely gone, Taeyong sees that the skin is still a bright angry red. Yuta sets his other hand on it gently, then applies a bit of pressure. His face only tightens slightly.

"It...feels a bit better, I guess. Even if it still looks like shit."

"That's good, at least." 

The nurse had given them a small box with dozens of small burn cream ointment tubes, so Taeyong sets to work rubbing them into Yuta's arm. None of them say a word while he works, but it doesn't feel awkward for whatever reason, which he's grateful for. He's watching Taeyong intently though, and he predicts correctly when he finally speaks up. 

"Taeyong, why don't we ever talk?" 

Taeyong looks up at him and he doesn't know what to do with the intensity of his scrutiny. He really isn't sure where Yuta's going with this, but he wants to play it carefully. He finishes wrapping the last of the fresh cloth around his arm before answering.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean I've known you for years, and all our friends are friends, but I think this is the first time I've ever had an actual conversation with you." It isn't an accusation, just a statement, and for a brief moment Taeyong wonders if Yuta's thought about their non-relationship as much as he has. He's about to respond, but the next thing Yuta says makes any response he might have had suddenly disappear. "Do you...hate me?"

_Yes. God, yes. I hate you with every fiber of my being because you can never be mine and it's taken me four years to even muster up the courage to speak to you. I hate you for all the people you've held that weren't me. I hate you for the four years I've spent still stunned breathless by your beauty, by your being. You make me utterly, completely miserable._

_I hate that I'm so in love with you._

It's a familiar sentiment, but something feels off about it now as it passes through his mind for the umpteenth time. He backs up out of Yuta's space, pressing his back to the collection of hand towels hanging off a wall rack and staring at the ground. Taeyong takes a deep breath, counts down from three in his head before he answers, eyes still trained on the cold tile.

_"Hate_ is the word farthest from what I'd use to describe how I feel about you, Yuta. It's just..." Yuta takes a small step closer to where Taeyong's trying to will himself from existence. His head is slightly tilted, like he's trying to get a good view of Taeyong's face. He supposes he at least owes Yuta eye contact, so he steels himself and lifts his head. 

The way Yuta's looking at him now isn't a look he hasn't seen before. It's the look he has when he's trying to take in as much information as possible, all of his attention zeroing in on the subject at hand, like they're the only thing in the world worth focusing on. Taeyong is expecting churning in his stomach, or maybe even a shiver down his spine or sweat to start breaking out on his forehead, but he just feels—

Nothing. Nothing at all. There was definitely a point in his life where there wasn't very much he would give up to have Yuta's complete and undivided attention like this, but right now he can't even feel disappointed for feeling nothing. 

"It's just...you've always been too good for me." he finishes his thoughts half-heartedly, no longer sure if his words still reflect his feelings right now. The longer he holds Yuta's gaze, the more he's sure that they don't. 

"Too good for you," Yuta repeats. Taeyong shrugs.

"You're…" _Everything I wanted to be, and everything I wanted all to myself._ Taeyong sighs in frustration. "I guess I've just always felt inferior to you. That's embarrassing to admit, but it's the truth. To me, you've always been…" Another deep breath. "Perfect." 

Yuta is quiet for some long moments. He's stock still, just staring at Taeyong, and Taeyong finding it easier than it's ever been to hold eye contact with him. 

"I guess I should be flattered," he says finally, then he smiles, bittersweet. "But now I'm just sad at the friendship we could've had by now." He reaches forward and shoves Taeyong playfully. "Because you were too _scared."_

Taeyong doesn't hesitate returning the gesture, ignoring the blush making its way up his cheeks. 

"Shut the fuck up. I'll kill you if you tell Jungwoo any of this happened." 

Yuta just laughs, turning to leave the bathroom. "Come watch a movie with me. Our friendship officially starts today." Taeyong stares after him for some moments before following, shaking his head in disbelief. 

What starts out as them just watching a movie turns into a discussion critiquing the plot and the characters leads to Yuta ranting about how different film culture is in Korea compared to Japan, which then somehow leads to both of them standing out on the porch venting about nothing in particular, both of them nursing cans of ginger ale ( _I don't actually drink that much, popular to contrary belief_ Yuta confesses _),_ movie now long forgotten. Taeyong is pleasantly surprised to find that Yuta is a lot more lucid than he gave him credit for; even though his accent hasn't really faded much as the years have gone by, he's certainly eloquent enough to make up for it. (Taeyong always thought his accent was adorable, anyway.)

It's nice talking to him, Taeyong decides. He can tell he's a good listener by the way there's always a beat or two of pause before he responds to something Taeyong says, taking a moment to synthesize information before carefully picking out what words he should use to express himself best. Somehow, it's clear to Taeyong that it's something he does deliberately, not because he isn't fluent in Korean—which isn't really true, anyway. It's not something he's used to regardless, but it's nice.

It reminds him of Doyoung, really, the way he frequently hesitates before speaking, casting his eyes to the side as if the forest will grant him the right words to say. Longing hits him with a crash at the thought of Doyoung, and looking at Yuta's profile illuminated by the waning moon, it becomes obvious to Taeyong why Yuta hadn't made his heart skip like he used to. 

His first impulse is to get back to Hanatan as fast as possible, by any means necessary. His second impulse is to jump off of Yuta's second story balcony right now without preamble. He ignores both of them, instead choosing to tactfully open his phone, feign checking the time, and quickly excuse himself from Yuta's apartment. 

There was a story he'd loved, back when Taeyong was a child, back when 'overactive imagination' was derogative when spoken by teachers yet he'd still chosen to wear the label proudly. It was about a young farm girl in ancient China who falls in love with a fox spirit that roamed the woods nearby her village. Every night when the light of the moon delivered the fox spirit to earth she would visit him, and every day when the sun rose again, the spirit would disappear, leaving the farm girl alone to her labor-filled life. For decades their relationship existed only after the sun had vanished from the sky, two lovers destined to a half-romance.

As a kid, the fox spirit's half-existence didn't really seem an issue to Taeyong, no matter how much the story had tried to frame it as the story's main conflict. What always bothered him is that, according to the story, the villagers shunned the farm girl for marrying a spirit rather than a human. He had been horribly offended at the notion that a spirit was somehow less deserving of compassion or understanding than a person—not that he could explicate himself that well at the prime age of eight and a half, but it was an opinion he was stubborn about.

It's what's on his mind now as he stands a block away from Yuta's apartment, listening with growing anxiousness at his phone's dial tone. He's dizzy as he tries to pick out the whirlwind of uncomfortable thoughts running through his head, mindlessly flexing his fingers to keep them warm. 

"Hello?" Jaehyun says. Taeyong only half registers how groggy his voice is, and the fact that it's almost midnight. 

"Jaehyun? Are you—awake?" 

A shuffle of cloth. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm awake. Is something wrong, hyung?" His voice comes out clearer this time, edging on the tone he uses when he can tell Taeyong is about to have a conniption. It's never been very reassuring, though he knows Jaehyun's only ever meant him well.

Taeyong takes a deep breath. He didn't even know what he wanted to say. Calling Jaehyun just felt like the right answer, and he tells him as much. 

"Did something happen? Do you want me to come see you?" 

"I'm...out, right now. I'm by Yuta's place." He expects Jaehyun to ask why he's hanging around his crush's apartment, but nothing is forthcoming. He's grateful. "I want to see you, though. I think that'd make me feel better." 

On the other line, Taeyong can already hear the sound of drawers opening and closing around Jaehyun's room. 

"I don't want to risk waking Jungwoo up. You know how he gets. Do you want to meet at the playground?"

He can't remember the last time he's been to the playground. It had been their meeting spot back in the day, generally past sunset after all the kids at the nearby middle school had gone home. The thrill of being out at night without supervision while they were teenagers lost its appeal as they grew older, but there's no way anybody is there now, and he's too anxious to go home.

"Okay. Okay, I'll meet you there." A pause, then quieter, "Jaehyun? Thank you."

"Anytime, hyung." Taeyong can hear the smile in his voice.

Taeyong sits down on the edge of the sidewalk, holding his face in his hands. He lets them slide up into his hair, pushing his bangs out of his face and then letting gravity pull them back down when he lets go. He can't remember the last time he let his hair get this long. He wonders if Doyoung likes it, if Doyoung cuts his hair lock by lock with sharpened sticks, if Doyoung's hair grows at all. It's been in the same style since they met those months ago, deep black and parted down the middle, thick enough for the moon's light to be lost in, hardly reflecting a thing. Taeyong's throat tightens at the image of him and he stands quickly, hopping on his bike to the nearest bus stop before he can let the tears fall. 

The playground looks exactly as it did four years ago, except the old merry-go-round had been replaced with a newer, shinier one, and they had added a circular sand pit at one of the end corners. Taeyong's inner child wants to run and flop down into it and kick up as much sand as possible, but he resists the urge and just smiles at the thought. 

Jaehyun looks up from the swingset when he approaches, gentle rocking coming to a stop when he plants his feet on the ground. His hair is disheveled, like he had come out in a rush and forgotten to brush his hair. It's such a Jaehyun thing to do. Taeyong stops in front of him and runs both his hands through it, flattening the parts that are sticking up. 

"Hyung?" he asks.

"You didn't brush your hair." 

Jaehyun flushes, gently prodding Taeyong's hands from his head and combing his fingers through his hair himself. Taeyong huffs a laugh. 

"I just...forgot. I got out of bed quickly when you called." he says, then looks at Taeyong curiously. "Are you okay? Something sounded wrong."

Taeyong takes a sit on the swing beside him. Way back when, Jaehyun would tease him about how his feet couldn't even touch the ground. They do now, but Jaehyun's always been taller than him, anyway.

"You don't still have feelings for me, right, Jaehyun?" There's no reason to beat around the bush here. The moon seems to be staring him down, exposing Taeyong for all that he is. It's an odd, burning liberation.

Jaehyun looks like he's about to say no, of course not, how many times have we been over this, but then he seems to have second thoughts. He looks at the ground, his feet shuffling in the dirt.

"Does it really matter? You're always going to be important to me, hyung. Regardless of whether or not I'm in love with you." 

"But are you?"

He doesn't answer for several moments. Normally Taeyong doesn't push Jaehyun on this matter, but he's been tiptoeing around it for too long, now. "I'm not. You're more than a love interest to me. You're...the most beautiful person I've ever met. Every facet of you, even the ones you try to keep under wraps, they're _sublime._ I've seen you on the days where you despise everything about yourself, and those are the days that make me think that humans really are fundamentally drawn towards compassion, because I don't know how it's possible to love someone as self destructive and hateful as I've seen you. But never once have I had the thought of abandoning you." He pauses, blush returning to his cheeks, a sprightly pink. "I know I'm being lofty, but that's the only way I can describe how I feel about you. That's my answer." 

While Taeyong listens to him, it suddenly becomes clear why he could never return his affections. When Jaehyun loves people, he loves them in the way an artist loves not just the details of their painting, but the way it reflects the light, how it fades over time, how every stroke and pigment is a representation of their own personal humanity—his love was a silent devotion, not paying attention to details as much as worshipping the ones that were there, flaws included. It's love in a language Taeyong never learned how to speak, and it's for that reason that his heart squeezes at what they might have been if he had only learned to meet Jaehyun halfway. 

Jaehyun wouldn't want him to dwell on what could have been, though. Even when Taeyong had rejected him just a year into university, Jaehyun had nearly begged him not to be hung up on this, like whatever made Taeyong beautiful in his eyes would be snatched away by latent guilt caused by none other than his chief admirer—destruction of the one thing you loved the most. He supposes he never stopped being the apple of Jaehyun's eye in the end, even if he did feel bad about it for months afterwards.

In that way, Taeyong understands how Jaehyun feels about him. It's something transcending romantic love, bordering on deific, and there's absolutely no way he deserves it. Jaehyun's always had a one-track mind when it comes to what he deems deserving of his attention though, so there's no point in saying that. 

And so, Taeyong just nods. "Okay. I believe you, Jaehyun." Jaehyun looks up, surprised, like he hadn't expected him to relent so easily. It's an assumption that's deserved. He's never been good with other people's feelings. "I just had to know." If he wants to do what he wants to do, there can't be any loose ends. 

Jaehyun's brows furrow, not in the worried way, but in the ' _Lee Taeyong what self destructive bullshit are you about to pull now,'_ way. His next question is equally and appropriately laced with skepticism. 

"Why?" 

That's easy. "I'm not in love with Yuta anymore."

Jaehyun blinks. "Oh. That's why you called me here?" It's not accusatory. Instead he affects a nonchalant, almost analytical tone that Taeyong wouldn't believe for a second had it been anyone else. Jaehyun's heart and mind have only ever been wholeheartedly sincere when it came to Taeyong, so he doesn't feel the need to doubt him. 

Still, it doesn't stop him from feeling a bit guilty. A quick look at his phone tells him it's a little past midnight now. 

"Yeah. That's...it, really." 

Jaehyun shifts, leaning into his space, the chains of the swings clanking lightly as they touch. "I can see why that'd be important for you." Taeyong breathes a breath of relief he didn't know he had been holding. For some reason, Jaehyun's judgement has always meant more to him than anyone else's. That he's being so empirical about Taeyong's feelings means he doesn't think less of him. 

"You don't know what it means to me that you understand this so well. That you understand _me_ so well." 

He smiles, dimples stark in the shadow of the bright lamp posts. The ardor in his gaze betrays his laconic response. "I pay attention." 

"Anyway...it just really scared me, you know? I've liked Yuta for so long now, _not_ liking him feels like…" Taeyong pauses. "It feels like part of my foundation has been uprooted. Like someone shoved me off a cliff without warning." 

Jaehyun hums, thoughtful. "I think that's a good thing though, hyung. Old things being uprooted only makes room for new things to grow. You know?" 

Taeyong's brows furrow together. "What's supposed to grow in place of me not being in love with Yuta anymore?" 

Jaehyun shrugs. "That's for you to find out. What I'm saying is, you don't have to run from that feeling of discomfort. Embrace it instead. It just means you're coming to terms with something new." 

"Growing pains?" Taeyong suggests.

"Growing pains." he confirms. Taeyong watches as he absentmindedly pokes his fingers through the holes in the swing chains. "If I may ask, why are you over Yuta all of a sudden?

That's straightforward enough. "I met someone else."

"Oh. Do I know him?"

"No, and I think it's best we keep it that way." 

Jaehyun smiles, eyes creasing at the corners in the way Taeyong's always liked. "Okay, hyung. You're allowed to be selfish with your love, sometimes." Then his expressions shifts to something more serious. "But really, I'm happy you've moved on from Yuta. You don't have to base so much of yourself on your feelings for someone else, now." 

That irks something in Taeyong, and he holds a magnifying glass to the feeling. "Is that what I've been doing?"

"More in the past, maybe. Not so much now. I think that's proof that this will be good for you."

That really wasn't the reassurance Taeyong was looking for, but it makes him feel relieved anyway. He's also relieved that Jaehyun isn't going to pester him about Doyoung. He really doesn't know how he's going to explain to everyone that he's fallen in love with a forest spirit that he bikes almost ten kilometers to visit every weekend.

He wonders offhandedly how they would take to Doyoung. Johnny would like him, he thinks. Doyoung is quieter and much less flamboyant than him, but Taeyong gets the sense that they'd share an emotional affinity with each other. He's not quite sure if Doyoung would tolerate Jungwoo's roundabout assertiveness, but the thought makes him more curious about how that'd play out in practice than he thought. He can imagine Doyoung brandishing a sword made to beat down bushes, while Jungwoo would rather dance around them with song.

Deciding he'll cross that bridge if he ever gets to it, he stands and holds out his hand for Jaehyun to take. Hand in hand, they walk a wide lap around the perimeter of the park, mostly quiet except for occasional comments on how much the park has changed and anecdotes on old memories here. It's something he's only ever done with Jaehyun, after the first time he had held Taeyong's hand and listened to him rant through angry tears about Yuta, the unequivocal love of his 12th grade life, dating some girl he had only known for two weeks. 

He doesn't know how many embarrassing parts of his life have been confessed into the night air here; mostly, all he remembers is Jaehyun rubbing circles into his hand with his thumb while he cried, and tugging him just a little bit closer when Taeyong would veer slightly too far away from him. 

"Do you remember when Jungwoo found out that we do this and made fun of us for a week about it?" Jaehyun comments when they pass around the sandpit. Taeyong gives a small laugh at the memory and takes a self-indulgent step to the side, leaving his shoe print in the sand. His inner child jumps for joy.

"Yeah. I'm glad we can still do this, you know, even though it's been a while. You know you're one of my closest friends, right?" 

"Just 'one of'?"

Taeyong bumps his shoulder, teasing. "You might drop down to top three just for that. Beggars can't be choosers." 

Jaehyun shoots him a wide grin. "I know, hyung. I'm glad we're okay. I hope we never grow apart from each other." 

Taeyong thinks he might cry then and there, throat squeezing itself tight. He really doesn't deserve Jung Jaehyun. 

He takes a breath, trying to steady his voice before words come out. "Me neither."

"Are you about to cry?" 

Nevermind, fuck Jung Jaehyun and his stupid shrewdness. 

Taeyong denies any forthcoming tears, but Jaehyun just laughs and disconnects their hands to sling an arm over his shoulder, drawing him close. Taeyong lets him.

Cunning aside, it's at times like these that Taeyong is so impossibly exceedingly glad that Jaehyun is his friend. No matter what, he's always accepted what little Taeyong reveals about his feelings completely at face value, no matter how ludicrous they seemed. Jungwoo would have teased him endlessly if it was him he was confessing to, and Johnny would have just raised a doubtful eyebrow and suggested he reconsider. Jung Jaehyun, however, was always able to recognize where Taeyong's comfort zone had shifted, and meet him there. For that he's eternally grateful.

"Do you want me to spend the night at my place?" Jaehyun offers once they're back where they started at the swingset. "Since the dorm has that curfew and all." 

"Yeah, okay. That'd be nice. It'll be like a sleepover."

"We can paint each others' nails," Jaehyun says. 

"And braid our hair."

"And you can tell me about this new boy you like." 

Taeyong chuckles, thinking of off-white clothing and the curl of cold moonlight in dark eyes. 

"Maybe." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was inclined to have the posters in mark's room all be really bad movie posters a la john egbert in homestuck. luckily i have some self restraint. but mark is definitely john egbert irl. hit me up on twt/tumblr to hear about my NCT homestuck au @sputnikmp3 or @sputnikp
> 
> also, the full metal alchemist thing is a reference to that scene where ed is dragged in through those doors by those hands. that's what i was picturing as i wrote that scene with yuta


	3. Chapter 3

For a while, Taeyong's heart feels lighter than it has in a long, long time. 

The heart-to-heart with Jaehyun is one cause, but Yuta is definitely helping keep his head above the tumultuous sea of academia. Part of it is the feeling of liberation that comes with seeing him around campus and not feeling his heart twist with desire and jealousy—but a good portion of it is also just Yuta being Yuta. Taeyong stops by every day for the next week to change his bandages, and every time he's ended up staying at least an hour longer than he intended, he and Yuta getting caught up in conversations stimulating enough for them to be completely unaware of how much time is passing. Really, they get on like a house on fire, and Taeyong is completely unsurprised by that. 

It's to the point where they're nearly always texting each other, and even though Taeyong still hasn't saved his number to his phone, Johnny and Jungwoo have definitely caught on. 

"Finally caught the eye of the man of your dreams, huh?" Johnny had teased once. Taeyong had given some sarcastic non-answer, but really, it's a bit surreal how much more active Yuta is in his life now. For so long he had only existed as a pipe dream, some kind of intangible Galatea that Taeyong could never figure out how to bring to life. And yet here he was, spam texting him all throughout Taeyong's lecture and he knows for sure that Yuta's supposed to be in a class right now himself. 

He wants to at least try to focus, so he doesn't even look at his phone as it buzzes incessantly, but he doesn't bother setting it to silent. Each vibration is a self-indulgent reminder of how good it feels to be wanted. 

He's bordering on reconsidering that, though, as the second he steps out of the lecture hall he's pulled to the side by someone who was clearly waiting for him.

"Lee Taeyo—ong," Jungwoo drags out the vowel of his name. "I hope you don't have plans, because Johnny's friend is hooking us up with alcohol at his place this afternoon, and I haven't seen you in a long ass time." 

Normally Taeyong would be irritated with him, but he knows Jungwoo's never been good at expressing himself directly—especially if those things are soppy and emotional, like _I miss you_ or _I'm sorry I haven't been texting you recently, but I haven't forgotten about you._ He unhooks the hand that's attached to his forearm and links arms with Jungwoo instead, pulling him along as he walks. "You know I don't like to drink that much. And I know you don't either, so I don't know why you're using that to rope me into another one of your circlejerks." 

Jungwoo pouts. "I thought you liked our circlejerks." 

Taeyong tuts. "I don't know, babe, they've just been a little stale lately. I can't help getting bored." 

Jungwoo taps a finger to his bottom lip, pretending to think. "Well, what will make you want to come?" he asks, as if Taeyong hasn't already tacitly agreed by even entertaining the hot air they're both blowing at each other. 

"Let me invite Yuta." He hadn't meant it seriously at first, but as each second passes by, the idea becomes more and more appealing. Jungwoo seems to agree, shooting him one of his biggest mischievous grins. 

"I'm sold."

"I thought I was the one being bought here?" 

"Who cares?" Jungwoo says, pulling out his phone and opening his contacts. "I'm calling Yuta right now."

Yuta agrees to accompany them without hesitation. Johnny's friend turns out to be Ten, and he apparently owns a car, so he, Jungwoo, and Yuta are picked up from the campus within an hour. From where Taeyong is sitting in the back seat though, he can clearly see the driver is none other than Johnny Suh. 

"I thought Ten was driving?" he asks once they're all situated. The car's owner in question is riding shotgun, his head just barely peeking over the headrest. He doesn't acknowledge Taeyong's question.

"Ten doesn't know how to drive," Johnny explains. 

"But I thought this was his car?" 

"It is," Johnny says. Taeyong shares a glance with Yuta and says nothing more. 

"Dance majors," Jungwoo whispers, loud enough only for them to hear, and they giggle quietly to each other. 

As Taeyong had predicted, Ten is the only person that actually ends up drinking any alcohol, everybody else settling for water or ginger ale. Ten brings out the censer once they're all sitting and/or laying around the living room, filling the air with the smell of citrus and pine needles. It's an odd combination, but it works, somehow. 

It's one of the calmer evenings Taeyong's had in a while. None of them are really doing anything in particular, except maybe Johnny, who brought his laptop with him to work on schoolwork. Ten is knitting something, too early in the process of it for Taeyong to tell if it's a scarf or a blanket, if anything at all. He's explaining something animatedly to Yuta, Taeyong not paying attention to what he's saying as much as he's focusing on the lilt of his accent. 

"And then when you consider the sheer power vacuum that'd be left over if Google and Amazon and Apple were suddenly and simultaneously obliterated—don't you ever think about how fragile our society is?" he's saying, as impassioned as Taeyong's ever heard him from their few meetings. 

"Not really," says Johnny without looking up. 

"No," Jungwoo says, eyes closed, half muffled from where his cheek is smushed into Taeyong's shoulder. He's half laying on him at this point, and it's not as uncomfortable as he thought it would be, so Taeyong lets him stay.

"You're so right, though," Yuta says. He hasn't lifted his head from the puzzle he and Taeyong are working on. "Like, did you know that when you delete stuff off your computer, it's not even actually deleted? It goes into _another_ folder, and the stuff you delete from _that_ folder is probably just sent to iCloud, or some bullshit." 

"You guys are thinking too hard." Johnny says. 

"What if you, like, bombed wherever they're hosting the Cloud?" Jungwoo suggests. 

"That's _exactly_ what I'm saying," Ten cries with a snap of his fingers, dropping his knitting needles. "It'd be _so_ easy to just collapse the entire system!"

"If iCloud ever went down, I don't think I'd even graduate." Johnny says. A pause, some typing. "I think my entire life is on this Macbook." 

Ten tuts at him. "Another slave to the corporate paradigm. Truly a modern tragedy." Johnny sticks his tongue out at him, making a face.

"I think you would've done better in Theater," he says, and the face he's making turns into a soft smile that Taeyong thinks is rather fond. It feels like something intimate, so he looks away.

"What do you think, Taeyong?" Yuta asks him. Taeyong deliberates before answering, dropping his hand from where it's poised above the puzzle like he's about to find his piece's missing partner.

"I think this puzzle is fucking stupid." 

It is, really. It's one of those puzzles that doubles as an optical illusion, in which the print on every piece is nearly identical— _just_ nearly. He stands with a stretch, forgetting that Jungwoo was using him as a pillow and sending him crashing to the floor with a groan. "I'm gonna use the bathroom." 

It's on the way back to the living room that Taeyong notices the door slightly ajar just at the other end of the hall. Figuring it's Mark's room, he heads towards it. 

Peeking his head in, he hardly notices Mark's figure sitting at his desk, the light from his desktop screen only illuminating his sides. 

"Mark?" he calls. Mark swivels around, sliding his headset off one ear. 

"Taeyong-hyung? I didn't know you were here." he says. "You can come in." 

Taeyong does so, perching on the edge of his bed closest to Mark's desk. "I just wanted to drop by and say hi. How have you been?" 

Mark seems surprised at the question, fumbling over his words a little before answering. "Oh—uh, well, you know, it's always the same with me. Nothing new happening." 

"Do you want to come sit with us?" he asks. "We're not drinking or anything. Well, Ten is, but it's nothing too wild." Mark gets this bashful look on his face at the offer, drawing a hand up to the back of his neck.

"No, that's okay, hyung. I have school stuff I want to work on, so…" When he trails off, Taeyong lets his eyes slide to his computer screen. The 'school stuff' he's working on is a livestream of a local news report playing footage of a group of people wearing colorful outfits and eccentric face makeup. He stares at them, long enough for Mark to notice he's watching and unplug his headset from the computer so the audio plays out loud. 

" _...as there's been reported activity in the outer areas of Incheon, especially near Hanatan Trailhead, where a young child was mysteriously spirited away without a trace. Leaders of this cult claim to be preparing a celebration for the child, seven year-old Kim Doyoung's disappearance, as this coming Friday will mark sixteen years since the beginning of supernatural events occuring in the city…"_

Taeyong tunes out anything that's said afterward, ice seeming to crawl up his veins and paralyze him. _Seven year-old Kim Doyoung's disappearance._ It's too much of a coincidence to brush it off as serendipity. Hadn't he said before that the child that disappeared would have been around his age by now? The ice in his veins melts suddenly, turning to heavy dread that settles at the pit of his stomach. 

On the livestream, an old, low-quality photo of the child is blown up to fill half of the video feed. He's holding a kendama that's far too big for him, the red ball barely fitting into the palm of one hand. He looks to be about six or seven, looking directly at the camera with a worried expression, and those eyes are unmistakably Doyoung's. _His_ Doyoung. Something like longing squeezes at his heart and he tears his gaze away.

He feels stupid. It was so damn obvious—he always had an inkling that there was a connection between Doyoung and the missing child, but he had assumed that the child had simply died, not been turned into some enigmatic forest spirit who could spawn flowers at will. 

An enigmatic forest spirit that he's fallen in love with.

The thought sends a fresh wave of chills through his body, and Taeyong takes in a quiet breath, trying to calm himself.

Just then, Mark's voice breaks him from his thoughts. "Isn't that interesting?" 

"What's interesting?" 

"The anniversary of supernatural events in Incheon just happens to be the same day as Kim Doyoung's—the kid who disappeared—birthday. February first."

Taeyong's mind takes a moment to synthesize that information. "This Friday?" Mark nods. 

Friday was two days from now. He's pretty sure he had reserved that afternoon for a study session with some of his classmates, but he doesn't think twice about scratching that off of his mental calendar. 

The news broadcast ends, changing to something about the business ventures of a local entrepreneur, and Taeyong excuses himself from Mark's room. He made a pit stop in the bathroom to make sure he doesn't look like he's just seen a ghost, but Ten eyes him once he makes it back to the living room, and it feels like he's become completely transparent under his scrutiny. Ten doesn't say anything to him though, and Taeyong tries not to think about it too hard. 

Once he's back in his dorm for the night, he very nearly calls up Jaehyun and confesses everything about Doyoung. He doesn't really know _why_ he feels so guilty about his feelings for him—he's attractive, fun, and for better or worse, has pretty much become his emotional rock for the past few months. 

The cognitive dissonance comes in the fact that Doyoung is, in essence, a spirit, even if he had initially denied the comparison. He may exist on this Earth, but whatever he _is_ certainly isn't human. The thought of ever being able to hold him close and call him his feels intangible, like if he had ever moved in to kiss him, their bodies would phase right through each other. 

He's touched Doyoung before, though, so he knows that that's an exaggeration. He wonders if Doyoung would even let Taeyong kiss him. He wonders if his lips are soft, if they taste like camphor and persimmons, sweet and comforting. And what if they _did_ start a relationship? Would Taeyong still have to bike almost ten kilometers to see him several times a week? Would Doyoung ever come live with him in the city, where he won't have the comfort of trees at every turn and damp earth beneath his feet? 

Taeyong wonders how hard it would be to drop out of college and go live with Doyoung in the woods, completely isolated from civilization and its accompanying social conventions about _not_ romancing mythological creatures. The idea doesn't even sound all that unappealing. Taeyong shifts to lay on his back, pressing half of his pillow into his face with both hands at the thought. 

Something is gonna have to give, soon. 

And really, Taeyong knew deep down it was going to be him. 

When Friday morning comes, nervousness is the first feeling that strikes him. It stays with him for the entire day, tension coiling tighter in his gut for every hour that passes. He tries his best to ignore it, spending the latter hours of the morning poring over his notes to compensate for the study group he's bailing on so he can freak out alone in his room in peace. 

If there's one thing Taeyong learns about himself as that morning fades into afternoon, it's that he _can_ apparently be incredibly productive, granted that he's working to avoid thinking about things he'd rather not. He's able to catch up on nearly all of his classwork, only allowing himself thirty minutes on his keyboard when he takes a break.

It's when the sun starts going down that he runs out of things to do, and he accedes to the fact that he won't be able to live with himself if he doesn't go visit Doyoung right now. While he's brushing his teeth, he wonders if Doyoung even knows that today is his birthday. For some reason, Taeyong is certain that he doesn't. 

He takes a pit stop at the nearby convenience store before starting off towards Hanatan. The moon is full again, its bright gaze turned to Taeyong, unrelenting. He holds himself up high in the light, keeping a cold grip on his confidence even as the trees on the trail grow closer together, almost blocking it out completely. 

Doyoung is sitting in the center of the clearing when he finds him, back to Taeyong as it usually is. His head is tilted up to the moon, and at this elevation it seems to take on an odd quality—its presence seems to be demanding your attention, all-consuming, like if he reached out to touch it, it would reach back and pull him in. Taeyong sets himself gently in the grass beside him.

For some time, Doyoung doesn't acknowledge him. His gaze is trained on the sky, and enough time passes for Taeyong to think he's in some kind of trance. He doesn't want to disturb him though, so he just sits and waits. 

"Do you remember," Doyoung says eventually, "When I asked if you've ever felt like there's something out there waiting for you, something bigger than your skin?" His voice doesn't exactly sound strained, but it's...different. Different in a way Taeyong can't place. He thinks the closest word might be _otherworldly_ or _hollow,_ but even that sounds a bit magnanimous. More and more he begins to think that Doyoung's existence simply can't be described in any human language. 

Nevertheless, he does remember that conversation. "I do." 

Doyoung is quiet for some moments longer, eyes trained on the sky. "I thought that feeling would go away, but…" he trails off there, then shakes his head frustratedly. 

"What is it?" Taeyong pushes, because he decides that he hates seeing Doyoung in distress. 

Doyoung breathes a sigh, shoulders dropping. "Ever since you've been coming here, I've felt more and more...trapped, or restless, like I'm not even meant to be here. Or maybe I am, but I wasn't brought here by any positive circumstances." 

Taeyong's breath nearly stops. Doyoung really, _really_ can't remember a thing about how he came to be—and it's _bothering_ him. What's more, his own presence is exacerbating that. He opens his mouth to speak, but Doyoung seems to sense what he's thinking. 

"I don't mean that to say _you're_ stressing me out. It's just that I only started feeling this way from that first night you came here." He pauses then, finally lowering his head to look at Taeyong. He holds his gaze with an odd conviction, like he's waiting for Taeyong to break or flee. Taeyong holds steady, even as Doyoung blinks his eyes slowly, and leans in just a little bit closer. Taeyong wills his eyes not to drop down to his lips, and he just barely manages the feat before Doyoung turns his head again. "I just keep having this thought running in my head over and over...I know it sounds silly, but if there's one thing I'm certain about, it's that I will not leave this earth peacefully."

His last words hang heavy in the air. There's a billion different ways Taeyong can interpret that, but for once he decides that maybe it's not his place to. Maybe Doyoung wasn't made to be understood—but simply to be witnessed. For someone who's been alone for as long as he has, maybe the most Taeyong can give him is the chance to know and be known. 

Doyoung sighs into the silence. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so dour." 

"No, I don't want you to apologize. I...I may not understand exactly how you feel, Doyoung, or all of the things you say, but I want to at least be able to listen. I want to be here for you." 

Doyoung's stoic countenance breaks at that, and there, that's the beautiful, lighthearted smile that Taeyong's tried to burn into his memory every night. 

Something must have shifted in his own expression, because Doyoung tilts his head at him curiously.

"You came here with a heavy heart, tonight. What's on your mind?" 

Taeyong breathes a laugh. "I don't know how you can always tell when something's bothering me." 

"You're an open book." Taeyong can't tell if he's being facetious or not. Disregarding it, he counts down from three in his head before speaking.

"Doyoung, I think you're the child that disappeared here fifteen years ago. Or sixteen, now." 

Doyoung blinks. "Why?" 

"The child's name was Kim Doyoung," Taeyong tells him. "It's...there's no way I can chalk it up to coincidence." he pauses, expecting Doyoung to interject. He doesn't. "And for what it's worth, there was a picture of him—the child, I mean. His eyes were exactly like yours." 

Doyoung smiles at that. "Do you think about my eyes that much?" Taeyong blushes lightly, not expecting Doyoung to joke about the subject. Doyoung takes a moment to consider his words before shrugging, smile faltering slightly. "I guess it would make sense. It seems obvious, now that I think about it." A pause. "So...I used to be human?" 

"I guess so." 

"What do you think I am?" 

Taeyong deliberates for some time on that before answering, unsure of what Doyoung wants to hear. "I think you're just you." He settles on. Doyoung nods.

"That's enough for me, then. I don't need to dwell on...what's past, now. Whether or not I was human before."

Something in Doyoung's complaisance doesn't sit well with him. "But isn't it wrong that you were denied your own human life? Your own _humanity?"_

"What does humanity mean to me? The only memories I have are of this forest. I have my own life here." 

Taeyong can't understand his reasoning. "But you could've been so much more."

Doyoung bristles at that, his face remaining impassive but tone turning harsh. "Am I not enough for you _now?"_

He suppresses a flinch. "No! No, Doyoung, that's not what I meant. You know I like you a lot." Doyoung relaxes a little, but his gaze is piercing, and Taeyong gets the sense that he's on trial. 

"Then what _do_ you mean?"

Taeyong spends some moments trying to find the right words before giving up with a sigh. "I don't know what I mean. It just feels like something was stolen from you. I mean, you never even had an opportunity to see all that there is in the world. You were so young when you were taken." It's hard to look at Doyoung like this when he's clearly upset, but Taeyong knows he at least owes him eye contact. He's still so beautiful, even now, with his brows furrowed and shoulders tense like the day Taeyong had first found him. He seems to absorb the moonlight, adding an emphasis to his presence that makes his heart skip and his eyes water. 

"I'm not here to fulfill some weird justice fantasy you may have about the circumstances that made me who I am, Taeyong." he begins, still firm but softer this time, and Taeyong wants to kiss the words from his mouth. "I understand you think it's unfair, and I do too, but this is who I am now. It can't be changed and I certainly don't need your pity about it." 

Taeyong slides his hand over Doyoung's where it's resting in the grass, holding up his weight. "I don't pity you." _I'm completely enamored with you._

Doyoung doesn't shake his hand off. "Then take me as I am."

Taeyong, for better or worse, has never been good at understanding when actions mean more than words and vice versa. He understood the concept, sure, but in practice, he's always danced through awkward or serious conversations with two left feet, misinterpreting the rhythm of conversation endlessly. 

Now though, as he curls his fingers over the top of Doyoung's hand, leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to his lips seems like the only way to express how he feels.

Doyoung tenses, but slowly relaxes when Taeyong brings up his other hand to rest on his shoulder. It doesn't last very long, Taeyong pulling away just after a few moments, and Doyoung has this dazed look on his face. He brings his hand to touch his lips, looking at Taeyong with wide eyes. 

"You like me that much?" he asks, and Taeyong loves how breathless he sounds. He nods, drawing the hand on his shoulder up to the side of Doyoung's neck. He lets his fingers run circles around the hair growing past his nape.

"Can I kiss you again?" 

A smile creeps onto Doyoung's face. "You can kiss me whenever you like, Lee Taeyong." 

And so Taeyong kisses him again, this time with more confidence, pulling Doyoung towards him until he's straddling his legs. His lips are chapped, just a little bit, moving tentatively against Taeyong's. He can't remember how long it's been since he's kissed someone, but it doesn't take long for him to find his own rhythm again, Doyoung picking up on his cadence quickly. His arms come to rest around Taeyong's neck, pulling their bodies closer together, and Taeyong is dizzy with the feeling of Doyoung's chest pressed to his. 

His lips, surprisingly, don't exactly taste like anything, but the longer their lips move together the stronger the feeling of walking on air becomes, like the second they pull apart Taeyong is going to come crashing down violently. He doesn't want that to happen, so he peeks his tongue into Doyoung's mouth until he gets the message. Doyoung lets out a short, low keen when their tongues brush and it's a chorus of angels to Taeyong's ears. Gripping Doyoung's hips tightly, he picks up the pace, kissing him more aggressively until he's squirming under his touch. All of the heat in his body seems to run south, desire coiling tighter in his gut at each little whine Doyoung gives him. 

He's going to be the death of him. 

Doyoung twists his head away gently, breaking the kiss even as Taeyong chases him with butterfly kisses pressed to the underside of his jaw. 

"You're so beautiful," Taeyong tells him, breathless between each kiss. "I can't even believe you're real most days." He runs a hand slowly through Doyoung's hair, leaning up to press a chaste one to his lips. "I liked being with you so much, it was so easy for me to forget you weren't human." He expects a response, but instead he looks into his eyes to find an odd expression lingering. "What's wrong?" 

Doyoung licks his lips shyly, Taeyong's eyes following the motion. "I liked being with you so much, I almost thought I was." He says it quietly, almost like a confession. "That's...really okay with you? That I'm not human?" 

A part of Taeyong's heart breaks at the question. "It's more than okay with me, Doyoung. I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I didn't mean it like I wanted you to change. Please believe me in that." He presses his lips to the side of Doyoung's neck, feeling the muscles there jolt with surprise. "I didn't fall in love with you because I thought you could be something else." 

Doyoung nuzzles his cheek into the crown of Taeyong's head, letting out a puff of air that tickles his scalp. 

They stay like that for some time, Taeyong basking in his warmth while Doyoung runs his fingers lightly up and down his back. Eventually he pulls back, and he loves the way Doyoung pouts at the loss of contact until he captures those lips in another scathing kiss. He leans forward just enough for Doyoung to be pushed back, bit by bit until his back is in the grass and Taeyong's legs are straddling his waist. 

Doyoung starts to giggle then, and through closed eyes Taeyong can see light start to gather around them. He opens them to find white flowers springing up from the earth, but this time they don't just reflect the moonlight; they're _glowing._ He watches in disbelief as they crop up all around them, encircling them like a cradle, casting gentle shadows on their bodies. Doyoung props himself up on his elbows to watch them too. 

"Oh. I didn't realize…" He looks like he's about to apologize, so Taeyong shakes his head. 

"They're beautiful," he says. "Really makes the atmosphere, huh?" Doyoung laughs at that. Taeyong's never seen him so chipper.

Something important returns to his mind suddenly. Uncurling himself from Doyoung, he moves to squat down by his bag, pulling out the small cake he had picked up at the convenience store and two plastic forks. 

"Did you know that today is your birthday?" he says, returning to Doyoung. He's moved to sit cross-legged now. "I got this cake for you." 

Doyoung's finger absently brushes circles around a nearby flower. "Today? Really?" Taeyong nods. His mouth opens and closes again a few times, like he's deciding what to say. Then, tentatively, "How...old am I?" 

"Twenty, now," he tells him, popping open the cake's plastic lid. "You're a year younger than me." 

Doyoung nods, taking the fork that Taeyong hands him. He holds it in his palm curiously, and Taeyong doesn't know if it's more cute or sad that he doesn't know how to use it. 

"Like this," he says, cutting into the cake as a demonstration and lifting a piece to his mouth. "It's vanilla. I thought you'd like vanilla." 

"I don't even know what vanilla is," Doyoung replies, copying the motion. He chews his piece once, then twice, before his mouth stills and his face scrunches together. He opens his mouth, tongue pushing the cake out of his mouth to fall into the grass unceremoniously. "That's awful."

Taeyong's eyes widen before relaxing a moment later. Of course Doyoung probably wouldn't like overly processed food. Guilt pricks at his chest. "I'm sorry. I just thought I should get you something to celebrate."

Doyoung sets his fork in the grass and scoots to sit beside him, taking Taeyong's hand in his own and leaning his body against his side. "You being here is more than enough for me." He shifts to a kneel then, tugging on his hand lightly. "We should go somewhere. Let's go walk around the forest." 

Taeyong lets him lead the way. It's a much quieter walk than the first time they did this, but the silence is comfortable, and he can't remember the last time silence was ever _comfortable_ for him. The warmth of Doyoung's hand in his own puts him at ease, like all of life's discomforts simply bend around him, graceful and polite. They stop at the persimmon tree, Taeyong wrapping his arms around Doyoung's waist from behind when he reaches up to pluck one from the branch. He laughs when Taeyong kisses his neck, and his heart feels full to bursting. He can't remember a time he's felt more affectionate.

"It tickles," Doyoung says through his laughter. 

"I didn't know you were ticklish," Taeyong says, tapping his fingers gently above Doyoung's navel. He squeals and tries to wriggle from his grasp, and Taeyong lets him escape for a moment only to pull him into a harsh kiss, pushing him gently backwards until he's pressed up against the persimmon tree. He tastes like vanilla this time, addictively sweet. Doyoung's laughter quiets into gentle moans while he lets Taeyong explore his mouth. His hands come up to comb through Taeyong's hair softly, twisting the strands around his fingers and pulling them loose. It's cute how he always has to be doing something with his hands, like he can't stand to not be in contact with something. 

The kiss mellows out into something more gentle, Taeyong's hands running up and down Doyoung's torso just to feel, to remind himself that Doyoung is real, that he's here with him now and this isn't some hyper realistic fantasy that's going to be ripped away from him at any moment. 

"Loving you feels like I'm dreaming," he whispers into the corner of his mouth when they finally part, both of them panting. Doyoung's lips are wet and gloriously pink and he thinks they should be memorialized in every art museum in Incheon, in the world. Doyoung's beauty is _transcendent._

"What do you think the odds are," Doyoung says, "that we're both stuck in the same daydream right now? Maybe this is just one moment, endlessly expanding, and the world's come to a standstill around us." 

Taeyong has a trivial quip at the tip of his tongue in response, but he doublethinks it. "I always thought that the moon felt oddly still whenever I came here. Like it's…"

"Frozen in time?" Doyoung helps. 

Taeyong nods. "Exactly. Like Hanatan is in its own bubble, separate from everything else. Here, it's just us." He kisses Doyoung again, just because he can, short and sweet. 

There's something unbearably honest in Doyoung's eyes, and Taeyong recognizes the emotional intensity he must be feeling. He feels it himself. "Hanatan never felt like anything to me until you came here." 

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Doyoung pouts his lips in thought. "It felt like a rebirth," he answers, and Taeyong understands completely.

They pass the night together, and he's so at peace that for a while he's able to understand how Doyoung was able to exist here alone for so long. In the complete silence, there's no pressure for him to do or think about anything he doesn't want to—and at the same time, there's enough space for him to breathe in the case that he _does_ confront those stresses. 

How nice it must be, he thinks, to exist only at the whim of Mother Nature. 

And maybe that's what he finds so appealing about Doyoung. With him, there's no pretext or awkward social conventions he has to navigate. He simply _is,_ unapologetically and without shame, and God if that isn't a breath of fresh air compared to the loneliness he's been suffering at university. He could never grow into the mold that everyone seemed to expect from him, but with Hanatan and with Doyoung, that mold doesn't exist. 

He ends up dozing off at the base of a particularly tall pine tree, Doyoung curled into his side, head resting on Taeyong's shoulder. He's still there when he wakes up however many hours later and the sun is higher in the sky than he's ever woken up to during his sojourns at Hanatan. He shifts slightly, moving his hips away from a root that's digging into it, and Doyoung's eyes blink open, bright enough for Taeyong to put together that he had never fallen asleep in the first place.

"You're still here," Taeyong says, voice rough. "Sorry I slept for so long."

"I didn't mind. It's nice when you're here for so long."

"Even when I'm unconscious?" he teases. "Weirdo." 

Doyoung laughs, and Taeyong takes the opportunity to lean in and steal a kiss. He sputters, pushing Taeyong away from him.

"Your breath smells bad," he whines, and it's adorable. 

"What? Forest spirits don't get morning breath?" 

"I guess not." Taeyong leans in to kiss his cheeks instead, and he loves the faint flush that appears after each one. "Will you be leaving soon?" 

For a moment Taeyong is confused, then he remembers—he has a life outside of Hanatan. A life away from the heavy smell of camphor and moonlight and Doyoung. His heart sinks. 

"Yeah. There's schoolwork I have to do, and Johnny wanted me to come to one of his performances tonight." The corner of Doyoung's mouth twitches when he hears Johnny's name.

"You never tell me about your life. Outside of...here, I mean." 

And that's the crux of it all, isn't it? The rest of Taeyong's life isn't _supposed_ to exist outside of Hanatan. 

"Is your life really that bad?" Doyoung continues. 

Taeyong sighs. "No. It really isn't so terrible. It just...it can be stifling." It feels like drowning, really. He's not even sure if he's managed to keep his head above water.

Doyoung isn't having that, though. "You don't have to downplay your own pain, Taeyong, especially not to me. You're allowed to feel your feelings." 

He doesn't really know how to respond to that other than giving him a sad smile. He stands, helping Doyoung up from the dirt and brushing leaves that have fallen into his hair. 

"It's like the forest sticks to you," he says. Doyoung smiles at that.

"For the longest time, I never even realized the forest and I were separate." 

Hand in hand, they walk back to the clearing where Taeyong collects his bike and his bag. He wants nothing more than to stay here with Doyoung for the foreseeable future, but he knows he has to take care of himself, and that means not neglecting his responsibilities. As much as he loathes to admit it.

He pulls Doyoung into a kiss, long, slow, and sweet, until there's no more breath in his lungs and it's time to go. 

"I'll see you soon, okay?" Taeyong tells him.

"Okay," he says. "I miss you already." 

"I miss you, too." 

With that he departs, and if he tries hard enough, he thinks he can taste lingering camphor and moonlight on his tongue.

月  
  


Taeyong daydreams. He's already gotten used to being unable to recall events from the day or the week previous, but it's nearly every day this week that he hardly remembers waking up and brushing his teeth, let alone even making it to his lectures. Like blinking, he doesn't even realize he's doing it. It's all too easy for the world to slip away from around him, soundlessly fading into idyllic fantasies that unerringly revolve around one Kim Doyoung.

Oddly enough, the next time he visits his academic advisor he's praised for bringing his grades up—though he doesn't really feel like he's been doing anything much different. He's in the clear now though, and he's certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

"Dude, you've been totally out of it recently," Yuta tells him one day. He's laying on Johnny's bed looking at his phone, half-listening to Taeyong mess around on his keyboard. "You've been playing that one measure for like, five minutes now."

Taeyong hasn't been paying attention to the passage of time, but he figures Yuta's probably right. He keeps getting distracted midway through the measure, his mind apparently not up to the challenge of reading sheet music. 

"Is it obvious?" Taeyong sighs, deciding to shut off the keyboard for the day. He jumps into bed beside Yuta, letting his eyes shut. 

"A little bit," he says. Taeyong hears him shift, and there's a finger poking at his cheek until he opens his eyes. "Are you okay?" 

"Never been better." 

"You're not lying to me, are you?" 

"No." 

Yuta stares at him for a moment, expression carefully blank. "Alright. Either way, Jaehyun's been worried about you."

"Jaehyun's been worried about me since I turned eighteen," says Taeyong. "I think he'll be worried about me until I'm six feet under." 

Yuta laughs. "That's kind of cute though, isn't it?" 

In response, Taeyong reaches for a pillow and brings it down on Yuta's face. It devolves into a pillow fight from there, until Johnny gets back from dance practice and screeches at them to get off his bed. 

Mark picks them up later that afternoon in Ten's car, the three of them piling into the back. Yuta and Johnny are loud and chaotic, but Mark seems to exist in an impenetrable bubble in the driver's seat, going at exactly the speed limit and checking his rearview obsessively. 

It's Johnny's birthday today, and Taeyong thinks it's perfectly in line with his character that he wants to go to a botanical garden, of all places. He thought it would be awfully boring at first, but he's surprised at how much he enjoys the atmosphere. It's cold and clear and it makes his nose burn in the same way it did that first night he had gone to Hanatan. 

At some point when they're passing through a long archway that has long vines reaching up overhead, Yuta and Johnny get caught up in a conversation filled with too much scientific jargon for Taeyong to keep up with—something about CRISPR and the unreliability of the modern system of taxonomy—and they split off on their own, not seeming to notice they've left them behind. 

That leaves Taeyong following behind Ten and Mark, hands stuffed into his pockets because he didn't bring his gloves. It's easier for him to follow their conversation; Ten must have been here a lot, because he points out all of the new flora they come across and explains their quirks to Mark, who listens with rapt attention. It doesn't take very long for him to realize that they've mostly forgotten his presence too, and Taeyong has more pride than that, so he quietly slips away where the path suddenly diverges.

He's trying to pay attention to his surroundings, he really is, but he can't keep himself grounded at all. He's walked in far enough for the entrance office to disappear from view and the low roar of the nearby highway to fade, and it's just so, _so_ easy for him to close his eyes and pretend that he's nowhere at all. 

Truthfully, Taeyong's never really been a nature person. He isn't like Jungwoo who's petrified of most animals that aren't dogs or cats, or Johnny who looked at him with disapproval when he told him he quite literally rolled around in the dirt as a kid for fun—no, for Taeyong, he felt primarily apathy. He tried to keep a houseplant once during his first year at the university, but he had forgotten about it within a week and Jaehyun had graciously offered to take it off his hands. 

He doesn't realize he's been subconsciously following a small river upstream until he comes to the end of it. He stands before an artificial waterfall about his height, three rectangular stones stacked on top of eachother from largest to smallest. Water rushes out of a thin crevice cut into the centermost rock, completely transparent. Stray flower petals collect in the pool of water beneath the stones just before they move out into the stream, and it's ornate in a rustic way, but they're not what catches Taeyong's eye. 

On the topmost stone of the waterfall is a circular centerpiece, a rusty bronze medallion that glints in the light. On it is an engraving of a flower, one with spade-shaped petals that split towards the end, and he doesn't think twice about reaching forward over the water and running his thumb across it. 

It's cold, much colder than the air around him, and the pad of his thumb turns red even though it had only been in contact with the metal for a moment. Sticking it in his mouth for warmth, he pulls out his phone with his other hand and snaps a photo of the centerpiece. 

He leaves, following the rest of the trail where it curves away from the waterfall until he finds someone, a worker, crouched over a spindly fern with gloves. 

"Excuse me?" Taeyong says to him. The man looks up and Taeyong is momentarily startled by how big his eyes are. 

"Yes? How can I help you?" His name tag glints when he moves to stand. _Do Kyungsoo_ it reads.

Taeyong takes out his phone and shows him the picture of the bronze medallion. "Would you happen to know anything about this flower?" 

Kyungsoo leans in to study the picture more closely, and he makes a quiet _ah_ sound.

"Those flowers aren't real. At least nothing like them has ever been identified by any credible botanist." Kyungsoo peels the gloves off his fingers almost meticulously while he talks. "As far as that medallion goes, it's just a symbolic thing. It shows up in a lot of ancient manuscripts from the people who lived in the area centuries ago, before Korea was Korea. Historians think it may have been a symbol for transformation or renewal." 

Taeyong's brows furrow. "But they're not real." 

"Nope. Maybe they were at some point, but if they were, they're extinct now." 

That unsettles something in the pit of his stomach. It feels like a piece of the puzzle is missing, but he doesn't know what he doesn't know. "Is there anything else you can tell me about them?" He must have asked it with a little more ardor than he had intended, because the man's eyes widen with surprise before answering. 

"I don't know about telling, but I could show you something else if you're up for a little walk." 

Taeyong is led further up the trail into a small copse of fir trees that seem to crowd around them ominously, stiff leaves hardly rustling in the breeze. The air seems to turn heavier while they walk, and he gets the sense that the flora around him is watching his every step. Eventually they come to the end of the path, and Taeyong is confused why he was brought here until Kyungsoo steps into the brush, beckoning him to follow. 

Firs fade into vibrant camellias on this new path, dotting the ground with pink and red petals. This new trail leads them to a small pagoda made of off-white stone. It's open on all sides, a stacked roof similar to the waterfall from before being held up by four cylindrical pillars. He follows his guide up the small stone steps only to find that the inside floor is dug in deep enough for him to twist an ankle if he had stepped without paying attention. A thin layer of water is settled there, still enough for Taeyong to nearly mistake it for glass. Circular stone pads rise just above the water in a spiral pattern, with variations of the fork-tongued flowers from earlier carved into each of them. 

"This shrine has been here since before the second World War," Kyungsoo explains to him as he kneels at the water's edge. Taeyong follows suit. "The water comes up from a spring beneath the garden. According to superstition, when the moon is bright enough and the Earth's tilt is at just the right angle, the water is supposed to become a mirror to the realm of spirits." They both look up then, and Taeyong can see the rows of rectangular openings that would allow moonlight in. They mirror the stone steps perfectly.

"Others claim this is a gravesite." Kyungsoo continues. "Who it's a memorial to is anyone's guess, though. There used to be a lot more shrines like this around Incheon, but they were knocked down over time—nobody really seemed to care about them."

The thought makes him sad. Taeyong wonders what it's like to be forgotten in time. 

"You've preserved this one, though." 

Kyungsoo smiles. "We're not supposed to show visitors this shrine, normally. But you're the first person who's ever been curious about that flower engraving." His index finger dips into the water absently. "Plus, I'm sure the shrine gets lonely. At least now it can exist in your thoughts, too. It'll stay alive longer that way."

It's a nice thought, one Taeyong tries to soak up as he dips the tips of his fingers into the water too. It's freezing, burning cold just like the bronze centerpiece from the waterfall. Something else is off about the surface though, and Kyungsoo seems to notice it at the exact same time.

There's no reflection.

The image of the pagoda's ceiling remains frozen in the water, unchanging even as he and Kyungsoo pass their hands over it. It's like it's stuck in time, frozen on a single frame from before they had arrived.

"That...doesn't usually happen," he says almost apologetically, as if he's at fault for the normal properties of light no longer functioning. "This is odd."

For whatever reason, Taeyong doesn't feel particularly amazed. "Supernatural events usually are." That seems to spark some life in Kyungsoo's features, like he had momentarily forgotten to express emotion. 

"Oh. That's what this is. I guess we should report this, then…" He sounds disappointed as he says it.

"Well, you don't have to. You said it yourself—people aren't actually supposed to know about this place." 

Kyungsoo thinks about that for some moments before nodding to himself. "I think that would be for the best." Taeyong couldn't agree more. 

He thanks Kyungsoo for his time and leaves, left to scour the botanical garden looking for Johnny and the others. He finds Mark squatting at a small pond, palm flat in the water while small fish flit in between his splayed fingers. Ten is doing the same, except the collection of rings on the submerged hand are instead stacked neatly on the stones that line the water. He sits down beside them, watching the procession of fish just beneath the surface.

Johnny and Yuta find them eventually and then it's time to go, because apparently Jungwoo and Jaehyun are already at the restaurant they had made reservations at. It ends up being a fun night, but he doesn't miss the way Jaehyun casts him side glances whenever he's been silent for too long, too busy thinking about fork-tongued flowers to pay attention to the conversation. 

He has a rare free day the following morning, so he goes to see Doyoung. It's the fourth time he's seen him this week and his sleep schedule has definitely taken a toll for it, but he can't find it in him to care. Knowing that he has someone waiting to see him every day at Hanatan is rejuvenating enough. 

Today though, when he emerges from between the trees into their usual clearing, Doyoung is nowhere to be found. There's nowhere for him to hide in the open space, so Taeyong just lays down in the grass flat on his back and waits for him to appear, ignoring the anxiousness that's growing in his stomach.

A little under an hour passes with no change, and he's about to start nodding off, so he decides to go look for him. It's a bit nerve wracking to wander off the beaten trail alone, but he trusts that he'll find Doyoung soon. 

"Doyoung-ah!" he calls into the forest, his voice resounding through the branches with not even an echo to respond. The trees have grown so tall and he's so far away from the main trail that the only direction he can tell for sure is that he's moving uphill. A breeze picks up as he moves, growing strong enough for the tree bark to ache and groan all around him.

He thinks back to something Doyoung had told him before about the branches sounding like screams when it got windy, and it's just then that he hears it—it's a low and mournful sound originating from somewhere above him. It sends an icy chill up his spine and for a few long moments he's too terrified to move. The sound doesn't stop though, a soft moan growing into a ghastly crescendo with the wind until it trails off weakly, the pattern repeating enough times for Taeyong to shake the fear from his bones. 

Though the branches don't stop crying out to him, Taeyong forces himself to keep placing one foot in front of the other. He picks up a nearby branch to try and calm himself. It's sturdy and just a little taller than him, and he hopes he doesn't have to use it. 

Where the hell could he _be?_ From the way Doyoung had spoken about Hanatan, he'd never been anywhere else. Something cold grips his heart when Taeyong considers that he may have simply left. It distresses him more than he wants to admit, so he disregards the thought and presses on.

"Doyoung-ah!" he continues calling to no avail. 

Enough time passes for Taeyong to be certain that he's completely lost, and a quick look at his phone shows him that there's no signal out here. It's then that the fear he felt before descends into sheer panic, his breaths coming out faster and faster and he's running now even though he doesn't know where he's going or what he's even doing out here in the first place—

Taeyong trips over an unsuspecting root rising out of the ground, landing hard on his side with a grunt. He thinks he heard something crack, but he's too busy trying to scramble up to stand, and he ends up tripping over himself again anyway. He looks around frantically for anyone or any _thing_ that might be following him, and when he's met with nothing but low-lying brush and tree trunks, he lets himself settle down a little.

He crawls to a nearby tree and leans against it, and it's from here he sees that the branch he was carrying was split in two when he fell. That's just dandy, really. 

He sits there for some time, trying to catch his breath and let logic reassert itself. _In through the nose, hold for five, out through the mouth._ He repeats the mantra in his head while taking deep breaths accordingly, until his heart has returned to a normal pace and his hands have stopped trembling. 

Then, inhaling as much air as he can, he cries for Doyoung. 

His vocal chords burn with how long he holds the wail, until all the oxygen in his lungs has depleted. There's no response. He doesn't know what else to do at this point, so he steels himself and stands, prepared to find a way back home from here. 

Something flits in between the trees when he takes his first step. His eyes dart to it immediately, though it seems to flicker in and out of existence. What he does catch is a faint glow as it approaches, and soon it's close enough for Taeyong to recognize the beat of a moth's wings. It pauses several feet ahead of him, fluttering in place while he stares at it. He makes careful steps towards it, and it seems to dance in the air before flitting back through the trees where it came from. Taeyong chases it as best he can through the thick flora underfoot, and eventually the moth lands on the trunk of a camphor some paces ahead of him. 

It's then that Taeyong looks up and sees it. Up ahead, a section of forest turns from lush green to deep black all around, as if charred by an intense fire. He places a hand on one of the petrified trees, and he leaps back in fright when it crumbles beneath his touch, a large section of the trunk gouged out where he made contact. Defying the laws of physics, the tree stays standing even with a section of its trunk disintegrated into nothingness. 

Stepping deeper into the blackened copse, he just barely catches the edge of dark hair from above a tall bush, and his heart nearly leaps out of his chest. He pushes past it to greet him, but then he freezes at what he sees.

Doyoung is kneeling beside the carcass of a deer, and it's here that the char is the deepest black that Taeyong's ever seen. The grass beneath them looks like pure ebony, stiff and dead. Doyoung's eyes are trained on the deer's body, sitting stock-still like a statue.

"Doyoungie?" he calls quietly. Doyoung doesn't shift, even when Taeyong moves to crouch beside him. "Baby, are you okay?" 

Taeyong places a tentative hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't know why. He's never felt nervous to touch Doyoung before, and the realization that he is now scares him. The icy chill from earlier returns, more subtle this time but still present. 

Doyoung turns his head slowly to the side to look at Taeyong, and it's then that he notices the tear streaks running down his cheeks. His heart lurches.

"Oh, baby," he says softly, wiping Doyoung's face with the sleeve of his jacket gently. "Why are you crying? What happened?" 

"Someone killed her," Doyoung croaks, throat still thick with tears. "They killed her. They came here to—and they—they _killed—"_ Fresh tears start flowing from his eyes then, and he descends into loud sobs that are physically painful for Taeyong to listen to. He doesn't hesitate pulling Doyoung into an embrace, the corner of his shirt that hangs over his collarbone quickly becoming soaked with tears.

While his body is wracked with tears, Taeyong slides his gaze to the side where the dead deer lay. It's difficult to see at this angle, but he can see that part of its head has been blown open, its brains spilling out into the black dirt forming a thick pool of blood that soaks the fur around its neck and chest. 

Taeyong has never been particularly fond of nature, but the sight seems to twist a knife in his heart, and for a moment he thinks he might start crying, too. Doyoung doesn't need that right now though, so he forces himself to look away and rubs comforting circles into Doyoung's back instead. He starts to calm down eventually, and he pulls away from him once he's stopped completely. He has a determined look on his face, like crying into Taeyong's chest granted him newfound conviction. 

"We have to bury her," he says seriously, eyes still watery at the edges. "If we leave her like this, the other animals will come and—and eat her," he chokes out the last part. His nostrils flare, and Taeyong feels a little intimidated at the anger that comes over him suddenly. "This was an injustice. Someone came here and _murdered_ her and left her to _die._ She doesn't deserve that. She doesn't…" he trails off then, anger fading from his voice. 

Taeyong has never seen him so distraught, and it's unnerving to watch him flit between such intense emotions so quickly. He reaches over and takes both of Doyoung's hands in his own, squeezing lightly, and he looks up at Taeyong with wide, surprised eyes.

"We can bury her if you want," Taeyong tells him gently. "But you need to calm down first, okay? She deserves a peaceful passing, at least. You need to be calm for her." 

The words sound unnatural falling from his own lips. He's usually the one being comforted, not the one doing the comforting. It seems to help regardless, Doyoung taking in a breath and closing his eyes.

"Okay," he says, almost too soft for Taeyong to hear. "Okay. You're right. I just needed a moment." Both of them glance around at the blackened forest at the same time. Doyoung flushes, looking sheepish. "I didn't mean to. I got a little upset." 

That isn't what Taeyong had been thinking. "You did this?" 

He nods. "I...couldn't control myself. I was so…" He shakes his head suddenly before he can finish. "It was horrible." 

Taeyong isn't really sure what to think of Doyoung becoming so upset that he 'accidentally' cauterized a large section of woodland while also rendering them exempt from the laws of physics. For the first time in all the months that Taeyong's known him, he considers that Doyoung might be _dangerous._ He can't imagine him ever being moved to purposeful violence, but looking at the damage he's caused, it'd be irresponsible to rule it out.

Doyoung stands then, and Taeyong follows suit. They decide to bury the deer a ways away from the charred land, beneath a nearby camellia tree. They work for hours, only having their hands and nearby sticks and rocks to work with in digging a hole. Taeyong has to stop and rest several times, but Doyoung never seems to grow tired, carving out dirt handful by handful until his fingers are bleeding and he's completely covered in earth. It's almost frightening how rhythmically he works, and Taeyong is once again reminded of how inhuman Doyoung really is. 

They carry the deer to the grave together. Touching a dead body made Taeyong incredibly queasy, but this was too important for Doyoung to chicken out of. It's cold, rigor mortis having already taken over its body. They lay it gently in the dirt, refilling the hole with dirt until all that's visible is a noticeably disturbed patch of ground. 

Doyoung's brows are furrowed when they finish. Taeyong takes his hand in his own, both of them covered in soil. 

"There's nothing more we can do for her," Doyoung says. It's a statement, but Taeyong can tell that what he's looking for is reassurance. 

"We made the best of it." 

Doyoung nods, silent. He tugs at Taeyong's arm then, and they leave. 

They don't say a word to each other for the entire walk back to the clearing. Doyoung's eyes are trained on the ground, though Taeyong can tell it's because he's completely lost in thought, not because he's worried about tripping on a stray tree root. Something somber settles in Taeyong's chest as he watches his profile, wishing he could do more to cheer him up.

"You called for me," Doyoung says out of the blue, once they're down far enough for the groaning of the tree branches to no longer reach them.

"I was, yeah. You weren't in the clearing, so I came looking for you. I was worried." 

"Worried about what?"

Taeyong nibbles the inside of his cheek. "I was worried you had left." 

Doyoung looks up at that, meeting his gaze with the same conviction from earlier. "I don't want to leave you." 

That's not really what Taeyong had meant, but his heart flutters regardless. He leans in to kiss his cheek as an answer. 

Doyoung tugs him down onto the grass once they reach the clearing, crawling onto Taeyong to straddle his waist before capturing his lips in a warm kiss. Taeyong melts into him, hands gripping his hips carefully, pulling him closer. Feeling confident, he lets his hand slide beneath the silk fabric of his shirt, rubbing at the skin of his waist. 

Doyoung gasps at the touch, back arching into Taeyong's body. 

"More," he whines. "Touch me more." He obliges, leaning forwards until Doyoung is on his back in the grass, shirt riding up to his ribcage, and Taeyong is kneeling in between his legs. He lets his hands roam up and down his sides while he kisses him breathless, basking in the little moans Doyoung gives each time he ghosts over his stomach. The low thrum of heat coils in his stomach and he indulges it, letting himself get lost in the feeling of Doyoung's tongue sliding against his own. 

Something comes to mind suddenly, and he freezes. He breaks the kiss to sit up. 

"What is it? Why'd you stop?" Doyoung says. His cheeks are flushed heavy red, and it's insanely attractive. 

"Is this okay with you?" Taeyong asks him. Confusion comes across Doyoung's face.

"Is what okay?" 

Taeyong feels bashful all of a sudden. "I mean...this. More than just kissing." 

Doyoung props himself up on his elbows, casting him a quizzical look. "Why wouldn't it be?" 

"I don't know. I just figure you've never done anything like this before. I want to make sure I have your consent, first." 

He stares at Taeyong for a few moments, processing what he just told him. He seems to choose his next words carefully. "You're the first person I've ever really touched like this, that much is true. But I trust you. I trust you to make me feel good." He lets himself fall back onto the grass. "You're going to make me feel good, right?"

The question sends blood straight to his groin. God, how he wants to be the one to get him off. If he wants it to be good though, he has to go through all the precautions. 

"Just promise me that you'll tell me stop if you want me to stop, okay?"

"I will."

With that he leans down to connect their lips, Doyoung wrapping his arms around his neck and pulling him down closer. This one is slower, Taeyong taking his time exploring his mouth, and eventually he finds a rhythm that's excruciating enough for Doyoung to start writhing beneath him, grasping at the base of his neck for purchase. 

"More," he starts to beg again in between breaths, but Taeyong doesn't intend to give him anything more just yet. He wants to drag out his pleasure for as long as possible; he wants him to be as dizzy with feeling as he is.

"You're evil," Doyoung pants when they part, lips wet and pink. Taeyong just breathes a laugh. 

"I'm in love with you." 

Doyoung doesn't have a response to that, just letting his head tilt up slightly, baring his neck for Taeyong as he presses kisses to the skin on and around his adam's apple. He listens to Doyoung's breaths come out harsher in an attempt to stifle his moans while he presses his tongue into sensitive skin. It's cute, he decides. 

Taeyong's hips shift slightly when he moves down to his collarbone, his crotch brushing against Doyoung's. He cries out with surprise at the contact, and immediately after his legs are squeezing Taeyong in, chasing the feeling. Taeyong rolls his hips once, feeling their hard-ons rub together, and he cries out in pleasure again. He repeats the motion, this time rolling them in a wide circle, and Doyoung full on _keens._ He can't remember the last time he was this aroused. 

Gripping Doyoung's hips, he pulls them so that their groins are flush and sets a steady pace grinding onto him. 

It doesn't take long for him to completely lose himself in the feeling, dropping the rhythm from before and letting his hips jerk erratically, chasing his own release. The pleasure is so intoxicating that he doesn't bother stifling his own moans that fall from his lips. Doyoung's own whines start to come out more frantic and Taeyong takes it as a sign that he's close. He pulls the hem of his pants down, far enough for Doyoung's cock to spring free. He cries out when Taeyong takes him in hand, spreading his precum on his shaft and jerking him off with practiced ease. He leans down to capture his mouth in a kiss and it's then that his body goes tense beneath him. 

Taeyong unzips his own jeans, pulling his pants down far enough to pull out his cock, harder than it's been in months. It doesn't take very long for him to come once he starts stroking himself, careful to aim so that the white spurts fall onto the grass beside them. 

He collapses onto the grass once he's done riding out his orgasm, planting his head on Doyoung's chest and breathing in the smell of earth and camellias. It's a bitter scent, but one that he's learned to love the more time he spends with Doyoung. He's not sure he'll ever disconnect the smell of nature from his love, now. 

"Are you okay, baby?" Taeyong asks him once the afterglow has faded. His hand is still moving up and down the exposed skin of his abdomen. Doyoung hums, eyes closed.

"I like when you call me baby." 

Taeyong huffs a laugh. "Shouldn't you have told me that earlier?" 

Doyoung doesn't answer, instead turning over in the grass and draping an arm over Taeyong's midriff. He pulls him close, slotting his leg in between Taeyong's. "Stay here with me today?" he asks quietly. Taeyong pulls him in so his head is resting in the crook of his neck, kissing the crown of his head. There are bits of leaves in his hair, and Taeyong's heart swells with fondness. 

"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i imagined the grass fields and that section of forest petrified, i was thinking about when you're sent to the future in PMD2 and all the trees and stones are pitch black and frozen in place. that entire arc really scared me as a kid! also in the pokemon mystery dungeon games, there's a mechanic where if you stay in a dungeon for too long, a mysterious wind comes and kills you and you have to start all over again. that also extremely scared me as a kid, and i wanted to emulate that feeling with the screaming trees and all, because in PMD you know the wind is about to kill you when the wind starts to pick up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw suicide ment

It's a testament to Doyoung's effect on him that for a long while, Taeyong is able to convince himself that all is right in the world, and that this condition would persist. The loneliness he had suffered during the fall seems like a far away dream compared to the contentedness he feels now. The rest of February and most of March are almost completely saturated with blooming camellias and Doyoung's touch, his sighs, the squint of his eyes when he smiles—everything that encompasses _Kim Doyoung_. 

It gets to the point where he ends up buying a tent so he can spend the weekends with him. He grows used to falling asleep to the rustling of grass and waking to birds singing, all the while holding Doyoung in his arms. By this point, as Taeyong had expected, Johnny couldn't keep his curiosity to himself anymore. 

"The hearts are practically popping out of your eyes," he pokes him in the side one day. It breaks Taeyong out of his reverie, and he realizes that he's been smiling. "I know it's not Yuta, so spill."

Taeyong removes his earbuds, stretches. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean." 

They're in the library, occupying an empty table section on the third floor because the dorm felt too cramped for extensive research. Taeyong is researching, at least. Johnny had disappeared into the manga section as soon as they had walked in, and a copy of _Hunter x Hunter_ currently lay open in front of him. 

Johnny scoffs. "I don't know why you're being so secretive. Don't you want to spread the mirth?" 

"Not this one, no," he answers honestly. Jaehyun had told him he was allowed to be selfish with his love sometimes, and Taeyong took it to heart.

Johnny whines, but relents. "You've been more laidback recently, you know. I swear you had a smile on your face for the entire time we were out for Jungwoo's birthday the other week." 

Taeyong raises an eyebrow. "That's because laser tag is fun and I was kicking ass." 

Johnny rolls his eyes. "I'm just saying, it's been a long, _long_ time since I've seen you so...breezy," he settles on. "Whoever's on your mind, they seem good for you. I'm happy for you." 

The sudden confession has Taeyong blushing. "That's...thank you," he says shyly, bringing a hand to his neck. "I like him a lot." 

"I can tell."

For some time after Doyoung had discovered the dead deer, he had been uncharacteristically high strung. Taeyong lost track of how many times he had to remind him to relax his shoulders, or how many times he had to brush a finger lightly between his eyebrows to get rid of the crease there. He seems to get better as time goes on, but some days are worse than others. 

Taeyong thinks today—tonight, rather—is one of the better ones though, because a little ways into the trail, he hears singing. It's undoubtedly Doyoung's voice. It's shockingly clear, like the entire forest came to a standstill to listen to it ring out. His notes rise and fall without restraint, quivering between each other in a way that's almost forlorn, like his vocal chords aren't strong enough to contain the feeling he's trying to express.

Taeyong just barely realizes he's stopped walking to listen. His voice seems to reverberate through his bones like it has a life of its own, and it's downright hypnotising. There's no distinct melody nor are there any words, just pure sound resounding through the air without restraint. 

Eventually it quiets down to a low wail that fades out with a soft, wavering tone into the night. Life seems to return to the forest bit by bit in the moments following—the repetitive call of crickets begins to pick up, the lurch of branches in the breeze begin their chorus, Slowly, like he's only just learning how to use his legs again, Taeyong continues up the trail. 

Doyoung is sitting lotus-style in the clearing, head turned up to the moonless sky, basking in nothing. He turns when he hears Taeyong coming, legs unfolding from beneath him so he can move into a kneeling position, arms open. Taeyong doesn't hesitate to pull him into a hug, holding him tight.

"I didn't know you could sing." he says. He pulls away to press kisses on his face, heart stuttering when Doyoung giggles. God, his smile is so beautiful. 

"I didn't know I could, either. It just...felt natural."

"It was beautiful." Doyoung lets Taeyong kiss him after that. It's gentle, both of them taking their time mapping out their mouths and their bodies, never feeling the need to push or pull. He likes kissing Doyoung this way the best—it's reassuring, a reminder that he's here, that he's wanted, that he's loved. He thinks the feeling of Doyoung twisting the strands of his hair, softly tugging them without realizing will be engraved in his memory for the rest of his life. 

"I love you so much, you know that?" he says into his mouth, chasing even as Doyoung pulls away to breathe. He smiles against Taeyong's lips and he's so, so warm. "I love you more than anything. You're an angel." 

Doyoung huffs a laugh. "I thought I was a spirit?" 

"You could be a demon, and I'd still love you." He hums into Taeyong's mouth as a response. 

Doyoung wants to go on a walk later that night. Normally they only ever go to the very end of the trail or to explore off the trail, so he's surprised when Doyoung leads him down the forest hill to the very beginning of Hanatan Trail. 

"Where are we going?" he asks when they step out onto the tire-scored dirt path. 

He feels strangely vulnerable out here without the comfort of the trees surrounding him—he isn't even sure _when_ the cradle of Hanatan became comforting. He expects Doyoung to feel just as displaced under the open sky, but his gaze is resolute when he looks at him from the side, steps confident. 

"The fields," he says, voice taking on that inexplicably uncanny tone that gives him goose skin. "I want to find my grave." 

Taeyong is shocked into silence at that, goose skin intensifying. Doyoung pauses to turn to him, a questioning look on his face. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no. I mean, I guess I'm just...surprised? You said you didn't want to dwell on the past, before." 

"I did say that. I think...I hadn't quite processed the truth of my life, yet, just after you had told me." Doyoung makes a sudden turn off the path then, stepping into the tall grass of the field. It reaches up to his shoulders, tickling, some patches rising above his own head and scratching at his face. "I realize now that I can't move on from the past without tying up loose ends." 

Taeyong reaches out a hand to run through the grass as they walk. They're not as soft as they look from far away, but they're certainly pliant in the wind. "What loose ends would those be?" 

"I don't know." he admits. "It just felt like I should come here." 

"Answers to questions you haven't thought to ask yet?" Taeyong suggests, half to himself. 

"Something like that."

They walk so far into the fields that Taeyong can hardly see the tops of the trees in the distance. Even with Doyoung by his side, a sudden bone chilling feeling of isolation comes across him, crawling up his limbs and settling on his chest. He must tense up in fear, because Doyoung turns to look at him again. 

"Are you scared?" 

There's no point in lying. "A little, yeah. This feels…"

"Like trespassing," Doyoung finishes for him. It's not what he had been thinking, but it's apt, so he nods in agreement. "I feel scared, too. I think that means we're going in the right direction." 

Taeyong isn't sure he agrees with his reasoning, but a warm feeling rises in his chest that Doyoung wants him to be here with him. If a demon pops out from behind a random section of grass and rends him in two, at least he'll die of supernatural circumstances with Doyoung at his side. 

They walk for a short while more until Doyoung suddenly stops. 

"Here."

Taeyong looks around. The spot they're standing in looks like the entire section of grass they've pushed through to get here—in other words, completely nondescript. 

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes. This is…" he pauses. "The start and the end." He tilts his head up to the sky. Right now, the moon's absence feels stronger than ever. 

Without warning a gust of wind blows over the field, tall grass hissing loudly in its wake, a shrill roar. Taeyong has to dig his heels in to keep himself upright, arms flying to cover his face where the grass is being thrust violently into his face. 

"Doyoungie!" he tries to call over the wind, but it's either too loud or Doyoung simply ignores him. From where he can see from between his arms, he's standing perfectly still as the wind rages around him, seemingly unaffected by its force. 

He would scoff to himself if he could, but suddenly there's an acute ringing in his ear and the world seems to dissolve around him. Nothing in particular replaces it, but there are flashes of events he can't get a tight enough grip on to comprehend.

There's a woman with dark hair in one of them, and he can't see her face but somehow he knows she's smiling—

In another there's laughter and somehow the grass seems like the greatest thing in the world, tall and new—

The sun is brilliant and warm and he can't seem to tear his eyes from it, and that's when it starts to turn cold and empty, sliding between his hands like it was never there at all, a false god—

From above, or far away, or somewhere _else_ that he doesn't know, the woman is crying and so is the man beside her, and there's the angry whirring of a helicopter from above alongside an indistinct yet acute dread that renders him completely immobile even though everything seems to be violently swirling around him—

Then the earth and the sky and the air all seem to open up at once, unrelenting and carrying with it some kind of otherworldly horror that Taeyong doesn't think man was ever meant to experience. They opened, turned themselves inside out to take and take and _take_ and he doesn't understand how he can comprehend being unmade—

And then there's one final gust of wind like a final divine punctuation and it peters out until it's nothing more than a whisper. Taeyong doesn't realize how tightly his eyes had been shut until it physically pained him to open them up again. He's only vaguely aware of tears streaming down his face and he has no idea why.

He tries to stand and fails, legs uncooperative, something worse than mere vertigo coming over him. It feels like all of his organs had been ripped from his body and then thrown back in haphazardly, with the added effect of an inexplicable fear of something overpoweringly profound and unknown.

As expected, he ends up kneeling over himself in the dirt and retching up whatever it is he had for lunch earlier that afternoon. Doyoung's hand is at his back rubbing in circles, and all he can think about is where he learned the comforting gesture when he's never even lived around humans. 

Body no longer tense from squeezing the contents of his stomach out the wrong hole, he collapses backwards into Doyoung's hold. He doesn't think he's ever felt this weak in his life. He's not sure if he even _is_ anymore.

"I'm sorry," Taeyong barely registers him say. His own tongue feels heavy in his mouth, weighted like lead, unable to respond. "Why are you crying? I don't know what happened. Are you hurt? I can't see anything wrong. Oh, god…"

He can't remember standing up to walk himself, and his legs definitely still feel like jelly so he doesn't really think that happened anyway, but there's definitely movement, and soon he's being set down gently in the dirt beside paved tar. 

Doyoung's face appears above his own and it's impossible to focus on any one feature. Everything still sort of feels like it's spinning. 

"Taeyong, please. I don't know what to do. I don't know what happened to you. I need you to talk to me." His voice is distressed, and it's the one thing that causes some of the fog from his brain to clear. 

He's not really sure where any of his limbs are but he's able to muster enough strength to lift himself into a half-sitting half-lying position in the dirt. Doyoung supports him, arms around his torso to prop him up. 

"Phone," he says. Doyoung fishes around his pockets until he pulls it out. By the grace of God, Taeyong is able to unlock it and pull up Mark's contact before everything really starts turning fuzzy. The last thing he hears is Doyoung's voice desperately pleading for him to come help, Taeyong's hurt and he doesn't know what to do, and then all goes dark. 

  
  
月  
  
  


When Taeyong comes to, the first thing he notices is the heavy smell of citrus and pine needles. The blanket that's been draped over him is tan and scratchy—hardly even a blanket at all, really. He peels it from himself lightly, letting it bunch up in between the bed and the wall. Sitting up slowly, he takes in his surroundings. 

It's Mark's room. That makes the bed he's lying on Mark's bed, and the jumble of blankets and pillows on the floor would be—

"Mark," Taeyong says, cringing at the scratchiness of his voice. Mark jumps with surprise, dropping the phone he was holding precariously over his face right onto his nose.

"Taeyong-hyung?" Mark's hair is slightly curly where it falls into his face. It's cute. "You're really awake?" 

"Your hair is curly," he comments, lips curling up into a sleepy smile. He still feels lethargic, the muscles in his body slow to respond. 

Mark blushes, bunching up his blanket and tossing it over his head like a cloak. "Anyway...you were out for a really long time, you know. Do you know what happened?" 

Taeyong tries to remember. His memory is fuzzy, like something is actively blocking him from reaching out and grabbing them. The clearest thing he can pick out was terror so powerful it seemed like the world was ending. He gets the sense of something being torn in two, but that's all. He tells Mark as much.

"Well, honestly, I have no idea what any of that could be about. Someone called from your phone around midnight, and he was begging for someone to come help you. He said he was scared and he didn't know what to do." 

Taeyong perks up at that. "Doyoung? You talked to Doyoung?" Mark jumps at the sudden strength of his tone.

"I don't know? We found you passed out at the side of the road by the woods—you know, near the fields where that kid went missing. There was nobody around when we found you, and the voice on the phone definitely wasn't yours, so I don't know who could have called."

"We?" 

"Ten-hyung was there too," Mark clarifies. "You know, 'cause I only have my permit." 

Taeyong just stares at him, unsure what to think. "I literally have no idea what I should be doing right now." 

Mark stands. "Ten-hyung should know you're awake, I guess." He leaves, returning a few moments later with Ten in tow. He perches on the end of the bed, his weight settling on the mattress without so much as a creak from the frame. 

"It's good to see you're alive," says he, cordial as always.

"Am I not supposed to be?"

"You hardly had a pulse when we found you." he says. 

Taeyong's eyebrows fly up. "You found me half dead and you didn't take me to the hospital." 

Ten shuffles his legs so that he's sitting lotus-style, his ankle bracelets shining in the light from the window. "There was something out there with you. Do you know what the fields looked like when we came out there?" he asks, ignoring Taeyong's accusation.

Taeyong's hand curls tightly around the fabric of the mattress cover. "No. I don't remember anything." 

Mark interrupts whatever Ten was about to say, suddenly fired up. "Hyung, it looked like a hurricane swept through and demolished _everything._ I couldn't take pictures because it was dark—so dark, hyung, the car's headlights couldn't even pierce it. It was like walking through pitch black fog." 

The room goes silent waiting for Taeyong to say something, anything, but he's truly at a loss for words. There's no doubt that Doyoung must have been involved in whatever happened if it was near Hanatan, but even if he wanted to, where would he begin to explain his existence? Would it even be his place to? 

He supposes he can't avoid the subject forever, but he's not going to be the person to bring it up. As it would turn out, Mark does for him. 

"Hyung, is this about the boy who disappeared?" he asks. Taeyong can't bring himself to say anything. He hates how this feels like an interrogation, and he hates how protective he feels over Hanatan, over Doyoung. He finds he can't meet their eyes, lowering his own to stare at his lap. 

When it's clear he isn't going to be offering up any explanations, Ten stands. "This seems personal for you, Taeyong. We won't push if you don't want us to." He pauses in the door's entrance. "Just make sure whatever you're doing, you're careful about it. The destruction that's there…" Ten shakes his head with dismay, then leaves. Mark just looks at him nervously and shrugs. 

It takes another two days for Taeyong to be able to stand without feeling like he's going to throw up. Ten and Mark take turns watching over him, which he doesn't really need but he appreciated regardless. He finds that Ten's amiability runs at least slightly deeper beneath the surface than he thought, keeping him company when he can't bear to look at his phone screen anymore and the words from the books he let Taeyong borrow become too jumbled to read. 

Jungwoo and Jaehyun visit him both days, and he avoids their questions just as he had with Ten and Mark. They don't push either, but the look Jaehyun gives him in the beginning tells Taeyong that he's already connected the dots. He isn't about to prove him right or wrong. 

Johnny is there for a lot of that time too, and he's completely unsurprised to find that Johnny actually spends more time at Ten's apartment than he lets on. He lets him get away with it for now, but he definitely plans on bothering him about it later.

Taeyong is hardly back in the dorm for an hour before he's already donning a light coat and digging behind the boxes in his closet for his old hiking boots. Johnny comes up behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, what are you doing?" he says worriedly. Taeyong wants to roll his eyes at how doting Johnny can be sometimes. Can't he just let him be self-destructive in peace? 

"Going out," Taeyong says shortly. Johnny just sighs.

"And I don't suppose there's anything I can say to stop you."

No. There really isn't. "I need to see him." 

Johnny retracts his hand, moving to sit on his bed and watch Taeyong tie the laces on his boots. "Am I ever going to know what's going on with you and...whoever it is you're seeing?" he asks. 

Taeyong stands, brushing off his hands from the closet dust. Johnny has this honest look on his face, one that doesn't deserve any of his snappiness. But he knows that Johnny is more clever than he lets on, and he respects him enough to at least acknowledge that. 

"How much do you think you know?" 

Johnny brings his knees up to his chest, hugging them. He looks like a worried child, confessing to a parent he isn't sure is going to be merciful or not. Taeyong hates feeling like he's the one casting judgement in this situation. "I know that you leave every weekend, sometimes weekdays to go god knows where, and you don't come back for hours, not until early Monday mornings if it's the weekend. I know that whoever you're seeing makes you happy, because I've never seen you happier. And I know that you're dead set on keeping him a secret, which is the part that scares me the most." 

Taeyong takes a seat on the bed beside him, mattress groaning at their combined weight. "It scares you?" 

"Taeyong…" Johnny starts. "You're not dating a drug lord, are you?" 

Taeyong just looks at him for some long moments before the laughter comes bubbling out of him. Johnny smiles nervously, clearly confused. 

"What, did you think I joined the mafia while you weren't looking?" he asks once his giggles have died down. 

There's a pink tinge to Johnny's cheeks when he answers. "I mean—I didn't know what to think. Jungwoo suggested it, and it seemed to add up…" 

Taeyong pats him on the shoulder, standing. "I thought you knew better than to have faith in anything Jungwoo says." Just then something catches his eye, black cloth peeking out from behind where his clothes are hung in the closet. When he goes to pull it out he finds it's his old guitar case, a thin layer of dust covering the black fabric. Doyoung's singing floats through his mind, hypnotic even in memory, and he slings the guitar onto his back. 

Before he leaves, he takes both of Johnny's hands in his own and looks him in the eye. "I'm not putting myself in any danger, I promise you. It's just for the best if nobody knows about our relationship." Then he glances away at nothing, unsure of how to phrase his thoughts. "If you're still unsure, just sic Jaehyun on me. If anyone has to know about him, it should be Jaehyun."

Johnny gives him a small smile and a soft _Okay, as long as you're safe,_ and then Taeyong's gone. The taxis don't normally function outside of city limits, but his driver is kind enough to take him right up to where the two-lane road diverges, just an extra mile. Taeyong can't help but wonder if he regrets it though, because what they see along the way sends a chill down his spine.

What was once a large swath of land covered in lush grass is now a charred, petrified wasteland. The grass is the color of pitch, hardly reflecting any light from the sun; like angry, crooked fingers reaching out from the dirt, frozen stiff even with the breeze. The atmosphere of the land has completely changed—it looks like a scene from a future dystopia, unwelcoming and haunted. He makes eye contact with the driver briefly in the rearview mirror. Neither of them say a word. 

He's let off right where the road diverges and watches as the taxi speeds off in the opposite direction, desperate to escape whatever hellscape Taeyong had directed him too. He doesn't blame him. 

The forest is quiet today as he marches up the trail. Rather than feel eerie or unnerving, it just feels _somber._ It seems to seep in through his skin, weighing him down from the inside out. He places his hand on a tree that's growing twisted onto the path, and for a moment he feels like collapsing there beside it to waste away. The urgency of the thought scares him enough to keep moving. 

His bike is in the exact same spot he left it last, settled on a waist-high bush, hidden from anyone who might have come up the trail unless they really looked. One more burden to cross off, he thinks. 

There's a rustle in the brush somewhere off to the side. Taeyong turns to see Doyoung emerging from the bracken, and he freezes when their eyes meet. 

"Taeyongie?" he says, uncertain. Taeyong doesn't hesitate to close the gap between them, pulling Doyoung into a hard embrace. Doyoung is slow to reciprocate, arms resting lightly on his back once he does. It doesn't last very long, Doyoung pulling away with furrowed brows. "You're here. Are you okay?" 

Taeyong lets his hands rest on his shoulders, anxiousness rising at Doyoung's unwillingness to touch him. "I don't know what happened, Doyoungie. I remember I visited you, and then we went to walk in the fields—and then…" he fumbles for a moment, trying to comprehend what vague memories he does have. "It felt like I was dying. I was so scared, Doyoungie. What happened?" 

Doyoung brings up both of his hands to cradle Taeyong's face, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, warm and loving. His eyes are still closed when he pulls away, staying shut until he speaks. "I'm sorry." 

"Sorry for what?" 

"For you feeling what I felt that day," he clarifies. "I shouldn't have brought you there without knowing what would happen. I'm sorry. I thought you were going to die. I'm sorry…" Doyoung's voice starts to tremble towards the end and Taeyong pulls him close right when the tears start to fall. 

He feels each one of his sobs like knives to his chest. "Doyoung, I don't even remember what happened." 

He finds some of his composure, speaking only with minimal sniffling. His eyes are trained on the ground. "When I was spirited away that day as a child, my memories were wiped. Returning to that field...it was too much, I couldn't control it. You weren't supposed to feel what I felt all those years ago." 

He isn't outright sobbing anymore, but a few more tears escape down his cheeks. Taeyong wipes them away with his palm and tilts his chin up to look him in the eyes. They're overflowing with emotion, dark and beautiful. For the hundredth time since Taeyong's met him, he can't help the feeling of something unknown and powerful swimming behind those moonlit irises. 

He feels small all of a sudden. It pains Taeyong to know that he'll probably never comprehend Doyoung's being completely like he wants to, no matter how much he may try. He had thought that his own very human, very flawed love would be strong enough to bridge the gap between natural and supernatural, but as time goes on, the idea seems less and less plausible. 

It hurts to know that there will always be distance between him and Doyoung. Heart feeling heavy, he leans forward and presses a kiss to his forehead, hoping it conveys all the forgiveness he knows he deserves.

It's then that he feels it—like ice water being dumped on him, a primeval horror seizes him without warning before slowly relinquishing its grip. Then it starts to fade in: the violent gust of wind, the empty sky, the soul-wrenching feeling of coming undone, like all the cells in his body being ripped apart all at once, sudden and merciless. 

A strong shiver wracks his body, and Doyoung brings a worried hand to his cheek. "You remember?" 

It takes a moment for Taeyong to find his breath. He exhales when he does, feeling like the weight of the universe had just exited his body. "I just did, yeah." 

Doyoung worries the inside of his cheek. "I'm sorry you had to feel that." 

"I don't want you to apologize anymore, Doyoungie. You can't regret the parts of yourself you couldn't understand." 

He offers him a small smile at that, but it falls quickly. There's something else on his mind, something that he seems nervous to share. Doyoung seems to suddenly draw strength from somewhere though, resolve washing over his features before he speaks. 

"Taeyong, you need to kill me." 

A beat, then two. 

"What?" 

"You need to kill me," he repeats. "I need to die. I don't know how else to explain it to you—what I saw in the fields, what I felt, what I _experienced—_ I was wrong this whole time, Taeyong. You—" 

He breaks off suddenly, the rising anxiousness in his voice clipped short as he realizes he needs to compose himself. His eyes shut and he lets a nearby tree take his weight; in through the nose, out through the mouth. Eyes open. 

"Taeyong, when you first found me here, I thought Hanatan was where I belonged. I didn't know there was anything else outside of these trees—at least not anything worth chasing after. When you met me, you were curious about me and my motivations, my quirks and my beliefs. I couldn't understand it at first. When you started visiting me more and more, I didn't even realize that company is something I had been missing." 

He takes in a shaky breath. Taeyong thinks he's about to start crying again, but his eyes aren't watering. Now, it just looks like an emotion too strong for him to contain is bubbling passionately just beneath the surface, intense enough to burn away any tears that might have formed. Taeyong can't place it from where he's standing. 

"Over and over you visited me, talked to me, shared everything about yourself with me. Over and over I watched you leave to go live a life I couldn't even hope to imagine. Even now, I still can't. You only exist when you're here in the forest with me, and it's _unbearable._ I never felt like I was stuck here until I met you, and I realize now that that's all I've ever been--stuck. I don't know what supernatural force stole me from myself, but I've been playing its games for too long. You taught me that I have worth, Taeyong, and I'm not going to just sit here and let it go to waste. I don't want to be a victim anymore. I want my life back, and if that means destroying it completely—then so be it."

He pauses again. He's looking at Taeyong like he expects him to say something, but he's been rendered completely speechless. Doyoung's cheeks are tinged pink from how impassioned his spiel became, but when he speaks again, it comes out far more level headed than before. "It took me fifteen years of isolation and falling in love to realize it, but I'm not happy like this. I can't care how much you love me or how much I love you. I'm not happy." Then softer, almost to himself, "I need to admit that to myself, now." 

That seems to be everything he wanted to get off his chest because they lapse into a strained silence afterward, staring at each other for what could be seconds or hours. 

Taeyong knew that Doyoung had been feeling restless, but this—this, he doesn't even know where to begin. 

Part of him feels hurt, but it's almost immediately replaced with guilt. He doesn't know when he had tricked himself into thinking that Doyoung would be satisfied with their current arrangement, but it's clear now that he can't rely on Taeyong for a sense of purpose, nor should he expect him to. 

It's his own fault, really, for letting Doyoung become his own personal escapist fantasy. He may not be human, but he's known him for long enough to have been able to figure out that he has the same wants and needs as one. How else could he have fallen in love with him in the first place?

"Doyoung, I never knew you felt that way," he begins. His own voice sounds foreign, still reeling from shock. "Why didn't you ever tell me you weren't satisfied? That you wanted your life to be more than this?" All this time Taeyong's been fighting tooth and nail to keep his life with Doyoung and his life at university as far apart as possible. Had that been killing him inside this whole time?

"And what would you be able to do?" he says. "It's not like I can learn to live the life you do. I don't need to eat, I don't need to sleep—Taeyong, I hardly even know what a university _is,_ let alone what kind of things you see and experience every day in the city, with other humans. I can't be like you." 

"Why can't you try?" 

Doubt falls across his face at the question. "Because even if I could, it wouldn't feel right. My life was stolen from me, Taeyong. It's not a loose end that can just be tied up with another rope. It has to be cut off completely, or I'll never feel closure." 

Taeyong wishes he could laugh. Deny it as he might, Doyoung really is a lot more ghost-like than he realizes. 

What he says makes sense, though. Even if they could make him human again, it's not like Doyoung could just start living a normal life. His family thinks he's dead, and it wouldn't exactly be easy to reintegrate himself into society. Taeyong understands his need for independence, and he can't have that with the shadow of his past trailing behind him everywhere he goes. Taeyong himself always finds it impossible to move on to anything new when he knows something else was left incomplete.

"Honestly, I'm not sure I even _want_ to be like you, Taeyong. I just want—I just want..." He trails off, letting out a small growl of frustration.

Taeyong steps a little bit forward, crowding Doyoung into the tree his back is pressed to. He takes one of his hands in his own and kisses his palm, then holds it to his own chest. "It's okay. I understand." 

"Do you?" There's so much emotion in Doyoung's eyes and it feels like Taeyong is quite literally holding his heart in his hands. 

"Yeah. I think I do. I understand what it's like to want a reset."

He's quiet for some moments, and suddenly Doyoung looks much, much older than he is. The white afterglow in his eyes seem heavier, denser, an inhuman depth to them that he can't tear his gaze from.

"I want a revival." he says in a low voice, and he can't exactly comprehend the quality it takes on besides saying it sounds _dead,_ emotionless, like the words were pulled from a place that has never known life. It's the inner menace that Doyoung possesses that's showing itself now, and it makes Taeyong's legs feel weak, heart thudding loudly in his chest. He takes a breath before trying to speak again.

"Is death really the only answer?" He's only ever known Doyoung to be clear headed, but part of him has to wonder if this is a rare moment in which his feelings got the best of him. The thought of a world without him in it is too painful an idea to even consider. There _has_ to be another option.

Doyoung pauses for a moment to think about it, but Taeyong is certain he's already tried to think of any alternative. "I don't know any other way to undo what was done to me." 

"So...what? I'm supposed to help you kill yourself?"

He twists Taeyong's index finger where their hands are still in contact. "A physical death won't work." 

"It wouldn't?"

"No," says Doyoung. "I don't know how I know, but it won't. I think I would just...disappear, then come back." 

Just as the words finish leaving his mouth, an idea pops into Taeyong's head. 

"You know, I think I know somebody who might know more." 

  
  
月  
  
  


It doesn't take nearly as much convincing as he thought it would, but some time later he finds himself sitting in the back of Ten's car with Doyoung. Mark came alone this time, and he isn't sure if he imagined the blush that appears on his cheeks when asked about it. 

"Ten-hyung was, uh, occupied," he says by way of explanation. Taeyong's not really sure what to make of that, but he pushes it to the back of his mind in order to put his arm around Doyoung's shoulders and tug him close. He looks about two seconds from a breakdown, eyes wide open in fear. He hadn't really considered what it might be like for a forest spirit to be thrown into a two-thousand pound box of metal moving at seventy miles an hour.

Mark's eyes keep glancing at him in the rearview. It's a mixture of curiosity and apprehension that he's going to vomit all over Ten's car seat, but he doesn't say anything. Neither does Doyoung, but he's got an iron-grip on Taeyong's thigh for the entirety of the ride back to Mark's apartment. 

From the moment he steps out of the car, Doyoung has his eyes trained on anything but what's directly in front of him. From the end of the trail at Hanatan there's a clear view of the suburban neighborhoods that line the edge of Incheon, and if you squint it's possible to make out some of the taller buildings towards the center of the city. If that's all of modern architecture that Doyoung's ever been privy to, he can't imagine what it must be like standing in the middle of an apartment complex, with walls of hard stone rising up all around them. 

Mark stops them at his front door. He's playing with his fingers nervously. 

"So...how are we going to explain your friend to Ten-hyung?"

Taeyong shrugs. "We'll tell the truth." It feels surreal having Doyoung here, in a section of his life he had fenced off with barbed wire. He keeps a firm grip on his hand, Doyoung squeezes his every once in a while to remind him that this is real, this is happening. "Just leave it to me. If he gets mad at you for driving alone, I'll take responsibility for it." 

It's not Ten that gets mad at Mark for breaking the law, but Johnny—who's here, apparently. If he's what Ten was occupied with why he couldn't accompany Mark on the drive, then he's _really_ glad Mark hadn't clarified earlier in the car. Regardless, Taeyong knows that Johnny's got a habit of riling himself up when criticizing others, so he cuts in before he can let that happen.

"Ten, Johnny, this is my boyfriend, Doyoung. Please be civil." 

His brows unfurrow where he was about to have a go at it with Mark, suddenly noticing there's a stranger in the living room with them. Ten hasn't seemed to notice anyone's even entered the apartment. He's sitting lotus style on one of the cushions, eyes closed and looking tranquil. Taeyong would have thought he was asleep if it wasn't for the rhythmic tapping of his index finger on his knee, like a metronome. 

Doyoung, for his part, hardly even seems present. He's staring at a painting on the wall; somewhat crude, it depicts a field of white flowers that are lit brightly by a hanging moon. He smiles. Of course Doyoung would like something like that. 

"Hi," Johnny greets stiffly. "I'm guessing you don't go to our school?" 

Doyoung tears his eyes from the painting to look at him. "No." 

"Oh."

There's an odd silence after that. Johnny and Doyoung keep their eyes trained on each other, falling into some kind of weird psychic battle Taeyong can't comprehend. Mark looks to him, eyes screaming _What the fuck is going on,_ but all he can do is shrug in response. It only takes a couple more moments before he gets fed up.

"Johnny, stop being a fucking weirdo. He's not a drug dealer."

Johnny's eyes narrow before sliding to Taeyong again. "He's not what I expected." 

"And just what _did_ you expect?"

Johnny shrugs. "Someone taller, maybe."

"Anyway," Taeyong says dismissively with a roll of his eyes, "I brought him here for a reason, and while I'm explaining, you're not allowed to interrupt, okay?" 

Johnny nods. "Okay. Doyoung is the child that went missing in the fields near Hanatan Trailhead sixteen years ago." Ten's eyes snap open at that, finger frozen in the air above his knee in its downbeat. "I met him maybe in October last year, after I ditched Yuta's party. He's human enough, but...he's probably closer to a spirit than anything." 

"He's a _supernatural?"_ Johnny interjects, though Taeyong can tell he's trying to be as gentle about it as possible. "Taeyong…"

"Look," he cuts Johnny off before he can start. "I don't care what he is or isn't. I love him and that's that." Johnny looks like he has more to say, but he thinks better of it and just nods for Taeyong to continue. "As I was saying, I brought him here because he wants to find a way to undo what was done to him. He doesn't want to be a supernatural anymore." 

"And you thought we could help?" Ten finally speaks up. 

Off to the side, Mark shuffles his feet. "I thought you might be able to, hyung. You know, because you're…"

"A crazy cult leader, yes." he finishes for him, eyebrow raised. 

Mark blushes. "No! You know that's not what I meant. You just...have connections. Don't your people revere the spirit of Hanatan, or something?" 

"Something like that." Ten stands up gracefully, somehow unfolding his legs in what appears to be a single smooth motion. He approaches Doyoung, pausing a few paces before him and entering a deep bow. "It's an honor to meet you, Doyoung-ssi." 

Doyoung looks bewildered at the sudden curtsy. 

"Um," he says.

"You know him?" Taeyong asks.

Ten rises, dusting off nothing from his jeans. "We of the Vision believe your existence marks the coming of a new age, a return to the old ways and the forces that birthed humanity. As such, if there's any way I can assist you in achieving your goals, don't hesitate to ask. The Vision is at your service." 

"Theater kid," Johnny says at the same time Mark mumbles something that sounds like ' _Why is he talking like that?'_ under his breath. They're both ignored. 

Abruptly, something clicks in Taeyong's mind. "Mark, Ten was a member of the Vision this whole time and you didn't think to tell me?" 

Mark twiddles his thumbs nervously, but he at least has the confidence to step forward from where he was dawdling on the edge of the room. "I didn't think you were that serious about it. But I mean, I guess it didn't really matter in the end…?" His voice lilts up into a question at the end, uncertain. Taeyong sighs. 

"No, I guess not." He shouldn't even be surprised, really. Ten is eccentric enough that he should've been tipped off. 

Doyoung isn't listening to their back and forth, eyes trained on Ten. "You can help me die?" 

Ten doesn't flinch. "If that's what you want, then I'll do my best." 

For the first time that afternoon, Doyoung releases Taeyong's hand and steps forward. "Then tell me what to do." 

Ten sets up the cushions in the living room into a circle for them all to sit on, similar to how it looked the first time Taeyong had come here with Johnny. The censer comes out too, predictably. Today it smells like camphor leaves and burning wood. Taeyong decides it's his new favorite incense that Ten's brought out thus far. 

Doyoung sits pressed against him, head resting on his shoulder and arms linked. It's an intimate position, one Taeyong feels shy being in with other people around, but Doyoung doesn't seem to feel the same, so he stays. 

Doyoung, in fact, looks pretty tired. His eyes have lost their vivacity that were present back at Hanatan and his breaths come out slowly. He smiles when he catches Taeyong watching him, blushing lightly.

"Are you okay?" Taeyong asks him, just loud enough for him to hear. Even when there's nothing more to hide about their relationship, he still wants to keep part of Doyoung to himself; his smiles, his warmth.

"I've never been so far from Hanatan before," he answers sotto voce. The _'H'_ of Hanatan nearly curls into the word _'home'._ "But I'm okay. I'm okay when you're here." 

Taeyong pulls away just far enough to press a kiss to his cheek. He appreciates the sentiment, but he's not going to let Doyoung get away with the trip in his words. "Hanatan isn't your home?" 

Doyoung hums a negatory. "It was, before. Not now. I've moved on." 

Taeyong wants to ask where home is for him now, but Ten finally takes a seat on a pillow between Mark and Johnny. He's holding a collection of papers of varying sizes, all of them off-white or otherwise partially damaged in some way. 

"There isn't much in writing on the death of spirits," he begins, sifting through the papers until they're organized to his liking. "Most of what's left of the Vision's manuscripts on supernatural events deal with preserving them or bringing them to life, not destroying them." 

"Just how old are these documents?" Taeyong asks. 

"The ones I have now date back a few hundred years or so." Ten says.

He balks. "Shouldn't those be in a museum or something?" 

"Oh, these?" Ten waves the papers in the air. "The originals definitely are in a museum somewhere, these are just my own transcripts. I spilled coffee on some of them. Others got stuffed in my bag beneath my binders and stuff until I remembered they exist." Right. Of course.

Johnny still looks incredulous. "Ten...just how much do you know about the supernatural events that have been happening?" he asks seriously. "If you have information, you should share it. People are losing their lives." 

Ten just shakes his head forlornly. "Nobody's believed me or anyone else in the Vision who's tried to share our knowledge. It's an old order, Johnny. It's not like we haven't tried in the past If the people aren't willing to listen, there's no point." 

Something dismal falls over the room. _When enough people believe something, it becomes true,_ Doyoung's words from an old conversation ring in Taeyong's mind.

"We're here to listen, hyung," Mark offers to the silent room. Ten smiles at him.

"And I appreciate that." He clears his throat before continuing. "The truth is that the nature of supernatural events are still largely unknown to The Vision. The only thing we've been able to glean from their ancient writings is that natural oddities are tied to the movements of celestial bodies. For Incheon in particular, the last time there was a surge in preternatural phenomenon just so happened to coincide with a transit of Venus, give or take a decade or two." 

Taeyong perks up at that. "Isn't one of those supposed to be happening this year?" It's a far away memory, but he _definitely_ recalls the university's science department announcing some kind of astronomical event like that.

"Venusian transits can happen centuries apart," Mark comments. Ten nods. 

"The last transit happened during the _Daehan Jeguk_ era, a little over a hundred years ago. Any documentation of supernatural events would have been burned when the Japanese took over, but there are some remnants of oral history that are still alive today." Ten sighs. "Still, the insights we have now are just fragments of fragments."

"I was taken sixteen years ago," Doyoung speaks up. His voice is quiet but somehow it still commands attention. "This transit you're talking about is only happening now."

Ten straightens his posture. "Celestial energy isn't sudden, Doyoung-ssi—it builds up over the course of years, sometimes decades, before reaching its zenith. You were just the beginning."

Doyoung shifts uncomfortably against Taeyong. From where they're pressed together, he can feel the tension in his body. Taeyong rubs his leg, soothing. 

Johnny clears his throat. "So once the transit has passed, things will start going back to normal?" 

"It'll take time, but yes. It seems to be cyclical."

"That's nice and everything," Doyoung says, "but what does any of this have to do with killing me?" Doyoung asks. Taeyong nearly cringes at how casually he says it. Maybe death isn't such a big thing to people who don't think they've ever lived.

Ten holds out the stack of papers to him. Taeyong takes it for him. The very first page is a scanned image of the solar system, with the planets' names written with Chinese characters. There's a block of text beneath it, annotated with blue ink with notes (and various doodles) in the margins. 

"The Visionaries back then believed that at the peak of certain celestial abnormalities, the normal properties of spacetime were nullified; at least thrice as much as whatever's possible as of right now."

Whatever Ten's implying, Doyoung picks up on it before he does. "And you think we can take advantage of that?" he asks. 

Ten nods. "Not that I have any idea how just yet. But it's a start." Doyoung doesn't say anything in response to that, but Taeyong feels him relax against his side regardless. 

That seems to be all the information they're going to get for now. Mark excuses himself to his room once they're done talking. Taeyong stands to leave too, and Johnny casts him an odd look when Doyoung follows suit. 

"Where will Doyoung go?" 

Oh. Right. "He can just stay with me in the dorm tonight." He thinks Johnny is about to protest, but instead he moves to the front door, beckoning them to follow with a nod. 

"I'll drive you back." 

It's awkward in the car. He can tell that Johnny is still trying to wrap his head around his relationship with Doyoung. Really, he doesn't blame him, but Taeyong's sure he'll come around sooner or later. 

With Doyoung trying to die, though, just how long could 'later' be? Opening his phone, Taeyong navigates to the science department's website on the school home page. There's another announcement about the transit, this time for a watch party being held at the observatorium. It's planned for Sunday—a little under a week from now. Glancing to the side, he notices Doyoung reading the announcement, too. 

"I won't have much time with you." he says, barely audible. "I'm sorry." 

Taeyong shakes his head. "We'll make the most of it." 

Johnny drops them off a block from the campus so they don't have to deal with the hellscape that is the university's parking lot. 

"You're not coming?" Taeyong asks. Johnny shakes his head.

"I had already planned to spend the night at Ten's. I'll...I'll see you around?" 

Taeyong isn't sure why it's a question, but he nods anyway. He gives Johnny a final thanks, and then he's gone. Whatever he has with Ten must be pretty serious if he's letting him borrow his car whenever he likes.

Taeyong ushers Doyoung to their dorm room as quickly as possible, not wanting to run into someone he actually knows and then having to explain who Doyoung is. He sits on Taeyong's bed tentatively, eyeing him while he sets his guitar to lean on his bedside dresser. 

"You had that with you all day," he comments. "But you never used it." 

"Well, I was going to play for you, but we got a little sidetracked." Doyoung laughs, high and sweet.

"Don't get confessions of suicidal intent every day?" he quips. If Taeyong chuckles, it's more from shock than anything else. 

"I don't know how you can be so casual about your own death." 

Doyoung shrugs, looking down at his feet dangling off the bed. "I'd like to hear you play, if you're still willing." 

_Anything for you,_ Taeyong thinks.

Unzipping the case, he carefully pulls out the acoustic and settles up against his pillows, facing Doyoung. Doyoung turns to sit cross legged, close enough for their toes to be touching. 

"You didn't want to accept the guitar I wanted to give you, but I still thought you'd want to hear the sound of one." Taeyong plucks all six strings individually for emphasis. It's horribly out of tune. 

"Mine was smaller," Doyoung tells him while he corrects each string's pitch. 

"You had a ukulele?" 

Doyoung shrugs, smiling at Taeyong's surprise. "I don't know what it was, if not a guitar. It had four strings."

"Sounds like a ukulele to me." 

The guitar isn't perfectly tuned, but it'll do. Doyoung is watching him with a look in his eyes so soft that Taeyong might cry. 

It's been a long time since he's played guitar, and even longer since he's sung—at least seriously. He hums a few notes to match pitch with the guitar, and begins.

It's a short song, probably more of a lullaby than anything else. Muscle memory lets his fingers dance around the four chords easily, and although there's some buzzing and a muted note here and there, he can't imagine Doyoung minds. 

His voice comes out a bit stronger than he intended at first, but he loosens the tension of his vocal chords by the next line. It's a soft song, maybe even a sad one, depending on how you're feeling. Right now, Taeyong isn't afraid to admit that he's feeling rather somber; he tries to let the emotion carry through in his voice, gently rising and falling with the melody, slow and melancholy. 

He doesn't realize his eyes have closed until he's on the final verse and he lets the last chord ring out into the dorm. He nearly chokes when he finds tears streaming down Doyoung's face. He sets the guitar down a little harsher than necessary, leaning over to wipe them from his cheeks worriedly. He suddenly smiles through them, though Taeyong doesn't know what he finds funny.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice heavy with feeling. "I've been crying so much lately. Do you think that's because of the transit, too?" 

Taeyong doesn't answer, just pulling him into his arms, hand pressed to the base of his neck to hold him close. Doyoung snuggles into him, snaking his own arms around Taeyong's waist. "I didn't mean to make you cry," he says into his ear. 

Doyoung shakes his head where it's pressed into the crook of his neck. "It wasn't you. I just...I just couldn't believe I'd ever be able to feel so much love at once. Your voice is beautiful." 

Taeyong responds by pulling away just enough to kiss him on the lips, hard. They're salty with tears, but he couldn't care any less. Doyoung gives a small whimper at the force of it, but he melts into him easily, tilting his head and shifting forward so he's settled in Taeyong's lap. 

They're both panting when they pull away, Doyoung's cheeks a pretty red. He's positively beaming, and Taeyong can't imagine loving anyone else ever again. 

"If I had been human, I think I would've liked to learn to sing," he says. Taeyong gives him a quizzical look. 

"You mean you don't already know how? You sounded beautiful just earlier today." He feels tired all of a sudden, unable to believe that everything that transpired today happened in the span of only a few hours. 

Doyoung laughs, short and nervous. "Did I? I wouldn't really know." 

Taeyong ducks his head to press butterfly kisses just under his jaw, moving to the sensitive skin of his throat. "You don't know how great you are? Is singing some kind of ghostly intuition?"

He just laughs at that, his Adams apple quivering under Taeyong's lips. "I think you would've made a great artist." he continues. "I saw you looking at that painting back at Ten's apartment. I think you have a good eye for beautiful things."

Doyoung hums. "Art," he murmurs to himself. Taeyong lifts his head.

"What? You don't have art in the forest?" 

He thinks for a few moments before responding. "The forest _is_ art," he says. "Nature is her own canvas. The art in Ten's apartment...and even here, the art you make with music—it's different. Very…"

"Human?" Taeyong finishes for him. He nods. 

"Human." 

While Taeyong jerks him off later on that night, even though Doyoung's soft whimpers set his blood on fire, burning so hot he thinks he might die, he can't escape the feeling of a clock ticking down to their inevitable separation. He doesn't feel as bitter as he thought it would; this time a year ago, Taeyong felt all too often that the world was unfair, that he deserved better, that he was just the universe's punching bag.

Now though, bitterness is an unfamiliar feeling. He doesn't know when he stopped thinking that life owed him anything, but he has an inkling that Doyoung's presence in his life had something to do with this newfound peace of mind. 

He's curled up in his arms now, afterglow gone, legs tangled. The moon is casting thin stripes of light in through the window, swaying delicately to-and-fro with the movement of its curtains. He doesn't know how long he's been lying here awake in the dark, but right now the digital clock on the dresser reads a disdainful 1:07 AM. 

"You're not sleeping," Doyoung mutters into his chest. Taeyong knew that Doyoung's shoulders were broad, so he's astounded at how well he can curl up into Taeyong's own lank frame. 

"I'm just thinking," he says. 

"About?"

"You." 

Doyoung hums, and Taeyong can feel the vibration through his sternum. He can't pull Doyoung any closer than he already is, but he tries anyway, squeezing. He cries out in discomfort and pulls away. Taeyong can still see his gummy smile through the dark. His heart flutters. "What about me?" 

His own smile falters at that, and for a while they just look at each other. Doyoung gets it eventually. "Oh." 

"It's six days until Sunday," Taeyong says. Six cycles of the sun, five cycles of the moon. One-hundred and forty-four hours. Then Doyoung will be gone from his life forever. 

Doyoung brings a hand to Taeyong's face, caressing his cheek. "I'm sorry to leave you, my love."

Taeyong places his hand on top of Doyoung's. "I don't want you to be sorry. I don't want my love to hold you back from...from what will make you happy." 

"I wish I could explain it better," Doyoung says, suddenly animated. "It's not just that I want to die—it feels like I _have_ to. Like I've overstayed my welcome. I hardly notice it when you're here, but when you're not…" he trails off there, then shakes his head with frustration. 

"I don't want you to rely on me for peace of mind, Doyoungie," Taeyong tells him quietly. "I love you more than the world, but if something divine is calling you elsewhere, it's not my place to hold you down. It wouldn't be fair to you." 

And that's always been the crux of it, hasn't it? It was cruel of him to expect Doyoung to be his one emotional refuge, to expect him to lift the entire weight of the world from his overworked undergraduate shoulders. Even if he managed it pretty well for the most part, Taeyong was just setting himself up to be knocked down from a tower that reached to the heavens eventually.

That's what was happening, now. Invest your heart and soul into one thing, and it's loss becomes more devastating for one person to bear. 

Doyoung's expression shifts to something sickeningly tender and Taeyong's limbs suddenly feel like mush. Doyoung kisses him with a firm hand on Taeyong's bare waist, and he lets all thoughts of loving and losing wash away in his touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> doyoung was singing pansori style! it's a form of traditional korean storytelling and it's tight as hell. also, the biggest fantasy ive indulged in the process of writing this is falling asleep in the woods. like god ive wanted nothing more
> 
> anyway! the song ty plays on guitar is rebecca sugar's song Escapism, which was almost the title of this fic.
> 
> final note, and a fun fact! the next transit of venus is set to occur december 11, 2117. i will not be alive to see this :<


	5. Chapter 5

Taeyong spends the coming days indulging himself. 

He doesn't know how else to describe lazy mornings with Doyoung other than them feeling like complete Arcadia. He doesn't think he'll ever grow tired of kissing him—he loves the way Doyoung unravels under his touch when he kisses him slowly and tenderly, taking his time to feel around every inch of skin on his body. He imagines Doyoung likes it too, because there's hardly a moment where they aren't in some kind of physical contact, even if it's something small, like their legs brushing. 

Taeyong never thought he could be this sickly-sweet with anyone, but here with Doyoung, it feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

He doesn't even think he's going to regret skipping out on his classes for the rest of the week just to be with him. He does what he can from home, at least, during the rare times he isn't completely caught up in Doyoung. It's Friday by the time someone comes to check in on him—that someone being none other than Johnny.

"Having fun with your academic death wish?" he says as a greeting. 

"Having fun doing the no pants dance with Ten?" Taeyong tosses back. Johnny just gives him a mischievous smile, which he returns. 

Johnny flops onto his own bed with an obnoxiously lewd groan. Taeyong throws a pillow at him. 

"Stop being weird," he scolds half-heartedly. 

"I'm staying loyal to my brand," he says. Just then a loud _twang!_ sounds from across the room, and they look over at the same time.

Doyoung is sitting cross-legged on Taeyong's bed, fiddling with his guitar. Taeyong had spent the morning teaching him to play the song he had sung to him just a few days before. He's a fast learner, but completely uninterested in learning anything other than the one song Taeyong had sung for him. One track mind, he guesses.

"Sorry," Doyoung says, nibbling at the tip of his ring finger. Even from a distance, Taeyong can see how red his fingers are. He wonders how different harsh nylon is from the scratch of tree bark; Doyoung's hands weren't particularly soft, calluses of varying sizes dotting his palm and the sides of his fingers.

Johnny turns to lay on his side, head supported in his palm. "You're teaching him?" 

"Trying to," answers Taeyong, moving to sit beside Doyoung. He has each of the chords memorized by now, but he has trouble jumping from one to the other smoothly. He's almost glaring at the guitar, willing the notes to ring out clearly instead of with the usual accompanied buzzing. "He kinda just seems to be doing what he wants, though." Doyoung sticks his tongue out at him, and Taeyong laughs. 

He's not sure if he imagines the knowing grin that flashes across Johnny's face or not, but he doesn't get a chance to bother him about it. "Jungwoo and Jaehyun wanted to hit the beach tomorrow," he says. "Are you in?

It's been a while since Taeyong has been to the beach. It used to be his favorite place to go as a kid, weekend treats his parents rarely passed up. For some reason, he thinks it's somewhere Doyoung would enjoy.

Taeyong nudges his arm. "Do you want to see the ocean?"

  
  
月  
  
  


Jungwoo and Jaehyun aren't as weird as Taeyong thought they would be when they meet Doyoung. Jaehyun is polite and accepting as he usually is, even though Taeyong knows there's a whirlwind of thoughts reigning terror in his head right now. In fact, he's without a doubt already formed his own opinion on him—whether it's a good or bad one is anyone's guess.

Jungwoo hardly bats an eye at the 'Doyoung is actually a spirit and he's lived in the woods for sixteen years' explanation, which Taeyong isn't particularly surprised about. Jungwoo's idea of weird has always differed wildly from everyone else's.

They leave together late that following afternoon so they can get a nice view of the sunset. Johnny parks on the side of the road by a waist-high barrier that separates the shore from black tar. There's a thin line of trees and tall ferns just behind the barrier, but it's thick enough to the point where it's nearly impossible to see the ocean through the leaves. 

They wait until the final car passes them on the road before jumping over the wooden fence in a flurry, pushing through the sparse flora until dirt changes to loose sand, their footsteps leaving deep gouges in their wake. Doyoung squeezes Taeyong's arm tightly when he first steps in it, but relaxes as Taeyong leads him deeper into the shoreline. It's warmer than he thought it would be where it slips in between his toes, and he can't imagine there's anything quite like it in the forest. 

The wide expanse of sand is completely devoid of people; empty far into the horizon on either side. It's technically illegal to be here, as the beach's main entrance is about a mile or two down the road they had come down, but it's not like anyone patrols this area, anyway. It was a lot cozier than being pressed up against a bunch of strangers.

All of them besides Taeyong and Doyoung go running off to where the tide licks at the sand. They won't dive in; it's early April, but not nearly warm enough to go swimming. He watched Johnny suddenly grab Jungwoo from behind and lift him, stepping dangerously close to where the water is about to pull in again. He laughs at their antics. Doyoung notices. 

"They mean a lot to you," he states. A few months ago, Taeyong thinks, he would've been surprised at how observant Doyoung was. 

"They do," Taeyong says. He tugs Doyoung closer, just a little, so he can feel his body heat just that bit more. "I've known them for a long time." 

Doyoung hums in response. He lets Taeyong lead him away from where Johnny and Jungwoo are having a scuffle in the sand, Jaehyun standing a little ways away and laughing. The sun is sitting just above the water, adding soft strokes of orange and yellow on top of deep blue. Doyoung's eyes haven't left it for a second. 

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Taeyong says.

"It's...nothing like I imagined," he replies after a pause. His own awe seems to leave him breathless. "There's so much space out here." He starts drifting towards the water ever so slightly, and Taeyong follows him.

"I liked coming here a lot when I was younger," Taeyong tells him. "I liked how wide-open it was. It felt like a getaway; like none of my worries existed while I was here." Not that he had any particularly stressful things on his mind as a ten year-old, but the feelings were memorable nonetheless. Something else pops into his mind, and he laughs quietly to himself. "Me and my sister used to pretend that we were on a different planet when we'd come here. We'd be Lewis and Clark, exploring foreign land and fighting off sea monsters." 

He knows Lewis and Clark are names completely unfamiliar to Doyoung, but he smiles fondly at Taeyong anyway. "That's really cute." 

"And then," he continues, "When Jungwoo convinced us to start hopping the fence instead of going through the main entrance, we used to dig rivers—we'd start just where the water reaches the sand, and we'd line the walls of it with seashells for support." That had been Jaehyun's idea, he remembers. They had dubbed him an architectural genius. 

"Did you ever make it very far?" Doyoung asks him. They're close enough to the water now that the sand is damp and compact beneath their feet. He watches the water pull back towards the ocean, a slow inhale.

"Not really," Taeyong answers. "We could never agree on where we should keep digging it, and it'd devolve into stupid arguments. Or when Johnny started coming along, he was so clumsy that he usually stepped on it and ruined the entire thing." Jaehyun and Jungwoo used to fight a lot back in those days—usually because Jungwoo had flicked sand in Taeyong's eye over something trivial like the depth of their moat, and Jaehyun always fancied himself some kind of knight in shining armor even if he'd never admit it. It's weird to think that they're roommates, now. 

The water rushes back in, swirling around their ankles and burying their toes in cold, water-logged sand. The crushed remains of seashells clink against each other where they poke at the soles of their feet. Doyoung shivers. 

They walk in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of the tide washing over the shore again and again to paint the atmosphere. When Taeyong looks back, he can just barely see the silhouettes of Jaehyun and the others. Warmth rushes over him suddenly; his friends really _are_ important to him, no matter how many times he seems to forget. 

"Taeyong," Doyoung says once the sun has finally started dipping beneath the horizon. The sky is turning a gentle violet, complimenting the ocean nicely. "Will you promise me something?"

"What is it?" 

"Don't get hung up on me when I go." he says. "The memories you've shared with me, they're worth more than you realize. I don't want you to neglect the life you have here because you're too busy thinking about our time together." 

Taeyong's eyes start burning when he finishes, and it definitely isn't because of the ocean breeze. "Can't my memories with you be important, too?" 

"Of course they can," Doyoung says. Both of them have stopped walking now. "But the time I've had with you is only a fraction of what you've had with your friends, with this city. You have so much going for you here, even if you struggle to see it." 

Taeyong doesn't bother hiding his tears. Somehow, his voice manages to come out steady. "Nobody else has made me as happy as you." 

Doyoung offers a sad smile in response, and Taeyong hates it. He lifts a hand to wipe the tears streaming down his cheeks, like Taeyong's done for him so many times in the past, and kisses him. It's slow and loving, Taeyong taking the opportunity to wrap his arms around Doyoung's neck and pull him closer. Doyoung's own hands fall to his waist, and _god,_ he's going to miss this.

"Promise me," Doyoung says, pulling away all too soon. 

Taeyong has always hated telling lies. Honesty was always the best policy in his mind, even in the hardest situations. Even when it came to Doyoung.

"I can't," he says quietly, not sure if it's even audible over the incoming rush of water. "I really can't, Doyoung. I love you too much. I can't promise I won't spiral after you're gone." 

"Then promise me you'll at least try," Doyoung pushes. "Please. I won't be able to rest otherwise." 

Taeyong takes in a deep breath and looks into Doyoung's eyes. He looks ethereal like this, the golden sunset illuminating him from behind like an angel sent from heaven. Even with his brows furrowed in seriousness, Taeyong doesn't think a more beautiful creature has ever existed.

He shuts his eyes, exhales, and tries his hardest to burn this moment into the retina of his eye.

"I promise."

Johnny and Jungwoo are lying in the sand once they get back to where they started. Jaehyun is kneeling beside them, eyes closed and back straight as a rod. It's his meditating position, one of picture perfect serenity. They don't stir when Taeyong and Doyoung approach nor when they take a seat beside them, fingers intertwined.

The sun is completely gone now, the ocean dark and ominous in front of them as the waves continue to rise and fall with the pull of the moon. It's a tranquil scene. Taeyong doesn't think he's going to find a moment of peace like this any time soon, so with some difficulty he folds his legs to sit lotus-style, closes his eyes, and listens to the tide's dull roar.

Jaehyun is the first to stand, wordlessly, like if he spoke then the ambience would suddenly be destroyed, never to return. Everyone follows after him, just as silent. Taeyong trails a little bit behind them with Doyoung, focusing on how his palm feels against his own, on the weight of his footsteps in the sand. They're walking slowly enough for Jaehyun and the others to disappear into the thin copse while they're still a ways away on the shore. 

Doyoung tugs on his hand and captures his lips in a short kiss when he turns. "I'm glad you brought me here." His voice is lighter than Taeyong's ever heard it, like it could blow away in the gentlest breeze. "It feels like you. It feels like it could be home."

There's a lot of things he could say in response to that, but he's still feeling choked up with emotion, so instead he just returns the kiss, just as soft, holding it long enough for Doyoung to cup his face in his hands and deepen it. It's not a goodbye just yet, but there's a mournful aftertaste that sticks to his tongue all the way back to campus. 

  
  
月  
  
  


Johnny is still staying the night at Ten's apartment, but now Taeyong is certain that he's not avoiding the dorm because he doesn't like Doyoung—he's avoiding it for the sake of their privacy. Even if he was a bit crude sometimes, Taeyong had to admit that he was rather thoughtful. 

He's hardly thinking about Johnny now, though, not when Doyoung is sitting in his lap on the bed, peeling Taeyong's shirt from his body and resting his palms flat on his bare chest. There's a faint smile playing at his lips, something that looks rather tender. He traces a path with his thumb over his collarbone and down his sternum almost meticulously, like he's trying to map out Taeyong's body and commit it to memory.

Taeyong understands that feeling.

He brings up a hand to rest on the nape of Doyoung's neck and pulls him down into a kiss. Doyoung hums, tilting his head for better access and parting his lips, just slightly enough for Taeyong to slide his tongue in. 

"I like this," Doyoung says into his mouth, warm. "I like you." Taeyong responds by pulling him closer so that their groins are flush, and slowly rolling his hips up. Doyoung groans, the sound reverberating through his chest and setting a fire in the pit of his stomach. He does it again just to hear that beautiful sound fall from his lips, and he loves the way he can feel Doyoung's shaft stiffen beneath him.

He's pliant when Taeyong takes his shirt off. He shivers under his touch, especially ticklish along the sides of his torso. He squirms when he dances his fingers across the skin there lightly, and Taeyong laughs. He grips Doyoung tighter around his middle before using his weight to flip them over so he's straddling his waist. His dark hair is in stark contrast to his white sheets, framing his face in a way that makes Taeyong want to pinch his cheeks. 

"You're so cute," he says, leaning down to kiss him. Doyoung hums, letting Taeyong push his legs apart gently to settle between them. He places a tentative hand on the bulge of Doyoung's pants, and he tenses for a split second before relaxing. 

"Okay?" Taeyong asks. He nods, jerking his hips up shallowly. Taeyong gets the message and starts rubbing his dick through the cloth slowly, feeling it harden beneath his fingers. Doyoung's soft whines are music to his ears, but there's something else to it that makes Taeyong feel like he's being dumped in a vat of freezing cold water. He chases the feeling, picking up the pace until Doyoung grabs his wrist, holding it in place so he can grind on it. 

"More?" he asks, and Doyoung nods frenetically. Peeling his fingers from around his wrist, Taeyong pulls off his pants and discards it somewhere off to the side. Doyoung's flush deepens with his cock fully exposed now, but there's something close to defiance in his gaze, like he's challenging Taeyong to play gentle with him.

He's willing to dance to his tune.

He only strokes Doyoung enough times to make him fully erect before shuffling backwards, leaning down, and pressing his lips to the head of his dick. Doyoung gasps with surprise, legs squeezing around Taeyong's upper body. Taeyong rests a hand on his thigh, rubbing it softly until he relaxes again. He pokes out his tongue to circle his slit, lapping gently before he applies a bit more pressure. Doyoung whines, scratches at the bedsheets when he does it again. 

From Taeyong's position he can see that Doyoung's eyes have fallen shut, head turned to the side while his breaths come out shallow. He feels giddy with anticipation seeing him react this way when he's hardly even touched him yet. 

He lets the head of his cock slip into his mouth, wetting it completely before swallowing the rest of him down. 

He sets a steady pace, bobbing his head with his tongue flat against Doyoung's shaft. He doesn't bother trying to stifle his moans at this point, thighs clenching around him in his pleasure. 

He cries Taeyong's name when he passes his tongue over his head, and he has to moan himself about how shamelessly erotic it sounds. The beads of precum that come off on his tongue send that feeling of ice cold water pulsing throughout his body again. It spurs him on, sucking off Doyoung more fervently than before. 

He pulls off with a lewd _pop!_ when his own pants start to feel uncomfortable. From how harshly Doyoung is breathing, he guesses he was pretty close himself. His eyes flutter open when Taeyong cups his face with one hand to kiss him. It's mostly tongue, but Doyoung doesn't seem to mind, hips thrusting up against him seeking friction. 

Taeyong holds them down and Doyoung whines in response until he starts unzipping his jeans. He can't help but groan at the friction of cloth moving against his cock, and he hears Doyoung's breath hitch when it springs free. 

He leans down to kiss him again, trying not to thrust shallowly where his dick brushes Doyoung's thigh. 

"Doyoungie," he says breathlessly, a thin trail of spit connecting their mouths. "Do you want to go further?" 

Doyoung glances down where his leg is brushing Taeyong's cock before looking up at him again.

"Further," he repeats. It's not a question, but Taeyong knows it's supposed to be one.

"I want to fuck you." There's no point in beating around the bush when they've moved this far along already. 

Doyoung's blush deepens slightly, crawling up his collarbone and up to the bottom of his throat. He has a hand resting by his side, index finger drawing circles into the fabric of the bedsheets. Somehow, he knows it's not a habit stemming from nervousness. 

He takes in a long inhale through his nose. "Okay," he says. "I trust you." 

Taeyong's heart does a flip, more from the determined way Doyoung confesses his faith than the anticipation of sex with him. He leans down to connect their lips softly. Doyoung brings a hand up to cup the back of his neck, holding him there. Warmth surges up from nowhere within him and settles in his chest. It's the kind born of pure affection, not desire, and he hopes that Doyoung understands how he makes him feel. 

Doyoung is smiling when he pulls away, lips wet and boasting a beautiful red hue. 

Taeyong grabs a few pillows they're not using and settles them beneath Doyoung's hips, slightly raised. He crosses the room to steal the bottle of lube Johnny never uses from his bedside drawer, returning and settling himself comfortably between Doyoung's legs again. 

"It's gonna be cold," he warns, pouring some onto his fingers. Doyoung nods, seemingly holding his breath as Taeyong presses the first finger in. 

He doesn't gasp so much as inhale sharply, but he remains tense even as Taeyong inserts a second finger. 

"You have to relax, baby," he says, rubbing his torso softly. Doyoung does so, albeit with more than a little effort involved. His walls are a lot more pliant now when he starts scissoring him, eating up his whines when he brushes over his prostate.

Doyoung is impatient by the third finger, and he's writhing at every jerk of his fingers by the fourth. That's when Taeyong takes pity on him, retracting his fingers and dousing his hand in lube again.

Doyoung is such a pretty sight like this. He thinks he could become obsessed with the clarity in his eyes, even while he's so sensitive, so responsive to the slightest touch Taeyong gives him. 

"I'll go slow, okay?" he says while coating his cock with lube. Doyoung nods, watching as he brushes his tip over his hole. He shudders as he does so, and Taeyong uses one hand to spread his cheeks before he presses in slowly. 

If Taeyong thought that kissing Doyoung was bliss, then being sheathed inside him feels _divine._ Though he promised to go slow, he can't help but thrust shallowly until he's completely buried within him. 

"Are you okay?" he asks Doyoung. His mind feels muddled with desire, but he registers Doyoung nod. 

"You can move." 

Gripping his hips, Taeyong sets a painfully slow pace thrusting in and out of him. Doyoung moans in time with them, low keen escaping through the space where his lips are slightly parted. 

It's horribly easy to lose himself in his own arousal with how tight Doyoung is. It feels like the heat is going to eat him alive; it's mixed with something deeply intoxicating, urging him to just take and take and _take._ He has just enough cognizance to ignore it, wanting Doyoung to enjoy this just as much as he is. 

Once Taeyong thinks he's adjusted to him, he starts to move faster, still somewhat restraining himself in order to keep a steady rhythm. They groan simultaneously at the change of pace, Doyoung's profile pressed into the pillows while his back arches from the bed. His eyes are closed, brows furrowed as he tries to hold back his moans. 

"More," he whines. "I can take more. Please." It's the hottest thing that he's ever heard in his life, and it sends a flash of lust throughout his body so potent that he feels a little vertigo. 

Taeyong grants his wish though, shifting his position just slightly enough to better accommodate a faster pace. Doyoung cries out at the change in angle, slinging an arm to cover his face while the slap of their skin together fills the room. His whines are muffled now, and Taeyong has never wanted to listen to anything more in his life. 

Leaning over him, he peels the arm away from his face by the wrist gently, pinning it by the side of his head. Doyoung lets him, his cries of pleasure ringing out clearly now, but his eyes are still closed even while Taeyong fucks into him fervently. He stretches down to kiss him on the jaw, moving up to his cheek before Doyoung tilts his head towards him. He captures his lips in a kiss, offering Taeyong no resistance when he slides his tongue between his teeth.

"You sound so pretty," he pants into Doyoung's mouth. His eyes are still closed when he pulls away, and he wants to cry from how adorable he is. "Look at me, Doyoungie. I want to see you." 

When Doyoung complies, all of the oxygen seems to leave his body at once. The strain of white light in his eyes seem brighter than ever now, giving the look on Doyoung's face an almost animalistic quality as he returns Taeyong's stare. Taeyong doesn't consider looking away for even a moment, the mystery behind his eyes sending equally terrifying and arousing feelings sprawling around his chest.

It feels like flying and falling, not knowing when he's going to land or if Doyoung is going to be there to catch him. 

The thrill of uncertainty stays even when Doyoung brings his free hand to the back of Taeyong's neck and pulls him down into another kiss. It's awkward with how hard he's ramming into him now, and he thinks there's teeth involved, but he can't be sure because the exhilaration of having Doyoung so close to him makes him feel drunk with love, unable to form coherent thoughts or verbalize them even if he could.

Taeyong's orgasm hits him unexpectedly, pleasure overwhelming and electric exploding out from the base of his spine and causing his body to go completely rigid. He can't tell if his eyes are shut really tight or if his vision just ceased functioning, but he can feel that he's buried to the hilt as he empties himself inside of Doyoung. 

Once his muscles start to relax, the feeling of falling violently disappears, replaced by a gentle comedown as he collapses on top of Doyoung. 

His entire body feels simultaneously weightless and dragged down by the densest lead known to man. He's vaguely cognizant of his face being smushed up against Doyoung's throat, so he hums with contentment, bringing a hand up to rest on his chest. 

He realizes with a jolt that Doyoung still hasn't gotten off yet and he sits up quickly, only to be struck by another wave of vertigo at the sudden movement. He manages to get a hand on his cock though, pink with a lovely, gentle curve where it's pressed up to his stomach. It's cute, Taeyong thinks, and he also thinks that he really has to stop associating sex with cute things.

It's only a few strokes before Doyoung is coming, hips arching off the bed and a loud moan falling from his lips. Taeyong doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around his waist, lean down, and kiss him while he rides out his own orgasm. 

"I love you," Doyoung murmurs into his mouth once it's over, both of them basking in their afterglow while wrapped up in each other's arms. Taeyong's tongue is still feeling heavy in his mouth, and he's just exhausted in general, really, so he just kisses him again and again and again, hoping he gets the message.

  
  
月  
  
  


When Sunday comes, Taeyong surprisingly doesn't feel much of anything. Doyoung is snuggled up to his chest when the sun peeks in through the curtains, light angled to fall across the pillows where their heads lay. Even now, Doyoung's hair seems to absorb it completely, with hardly a highlight to acknowledge the sun's grace. 

Taeyong shuts his eyes and breathes. Jaehyun had told him once about how time moves slower during and after meditation. He's only tried it seriously once during a bored Saturday back when they were nineteen. Jaehyun, ever steady, stuck with it. Taeyong could never relax enough to gain much from it. 

He wishes he had, though. He wants his last hours with Doyoung to last as long as possible. 

Maybe ten minutes pass of Taeyong counting ten inhales and exhales when his phone vibrates from underneath his pillow. It's a text from Johnny. 

_botanical grden 2pm_

_bring ur boy_

It's a quarter to nine right now. He's pretty sure Doyoung isn't actually sleeping, but his breaths are coming out against the skin of his collarbone soft enough for Taeyong to pretend he is. 

He'll let him rest.

Or rather, it's Taeyong himself who ends up dozing off again. It's been a long time since he's dreamt, but when he opens his eyes again there are remnants of a cold sun and a feeling of weightlessness lingering on his mind. 

He's only slightly dizzy when he and Doyoung arrive at the botanical garden. Vertigo aside, his mind's clear enough now to realize he has no clue what Ten was planning and why it involved copious amounts of flora. 

The front gates are closed when he approaches, the entrance booth unmanned. He already knows they are, but approaching the gate and tugging on it yields no results. He sighs. Definitely Sunday.

Taeyong and Doyoung take a seat on a bench nearby, one that (thankfully) has a wide shade. It's nowhere near warm enough to be uncomfortable, but for some reason the sun still feels oddly oppressive, distracting. Doyoung notices. 

"Is it bothering you?" he asks, not needing to specify what he's referring to. Taeyong nods. 

"I don't know what it is," he says. The clock on his phone reads 1:58. He's punctual. 

Doyoung leans into his side, head on his shoulder. "It feels heavy. Like if you stare too long, it'll swallow you whole." 

While he's contemplating that, he recognizes Ten's car pulling into the empty parking lot closest to the front gate. Ten and Johnny jump out, and to his surprise, so does Kyungsoo. 

Ten nods in the direction of the front gate when they approach. "In we go." 

Taeyong is confused for a split moment before he sees the big metal key that Kyungsoo is twirling in his hand. The gate groans open once it's unlocked. All of them enter besides Kyungsoo. To Taeyong's questioning look, he says, "The Vision is here to serve, not to witness." 

Alright. Cool. 

Ten leads them through the tunnel of vines and the park of camphors before Taeyong's curiosity gets the better of him.

"Is there actually something here for Doyoung, Ten?" he asks. 

"Patience is a virtue," is his response. Taeyong rolls his eyes. 

Doyoung leans into his space once the taller trees start growing closer together and the air turns cool. "It's really nice here."

He's not surprised Doyoung would like it here, surrounded by nature. It's a little more manmade than he may be used to, but it's close enough. 

Up ahead is the faint sound of running water, and the memory of the golden centerpiece at the waterfall and the hidden shrine hit him like a bolt of lightning. What had Kyungsoo said about the water at the pavilion? A portal to another world? 

Forgetting about the sun's strange pressure, he glances up at it only to flinch at its strength. Kyungsoo had said it only worked with moonlight, and it was still early afternoon. Still, his heart is racing beneath his ribcage, the ground beneath his feet feeling like a path to certain death.

He hadn't thought Ten would actually figure something out. He had spent the last week with Doyoung anticipating a fluke. He had felt somber, sure, but nowhere near the grief that's clawing up his throat right now, teasing at tearing it apart completely. Taeyong was nowhere near ready to accept his death so soon.

Looking to his side though, determination is clear on Doyoung's face. He walks with sure steps, eyes trained on the trees ahead. His confidence is enough to calm him down, if only just a little. If Doyoung can sense his anxiousness, he says nothing.

Pink leaves start to paint the ground as camphors change to camellias and taller flower bushes. Taeyong is trying _really_ to focus on the beauty of it, anything to keep his mind off the dread he's feeling.

"Uh...guys?" Johnny's voice sounds. Taeyong nearly bumps into him from behind when he stops, too busy trying to keep his feet moving.

"What is it?" asks Ten. Johnny's head is tilted up to the sky, and they all follow his gaze. 

The dizziness from earlier returns with full force when Taeyong sees that the once pale blue sky is now a deep-set navy blue, as if it were night. It's completely empty, void of all stars sans a full moon that beams down at them. It seems bigger than the sun from just moments earlier and just as inexplicably threatening. He gets the sense of a death-like stillness, unnatural and lacking any kind of warmth. 

They're all shocked speechless for a moment. Taeyong sees Johnny check his phone from the corner of his vision, unable to tear his eyes away from the vacant firmament. 

"It's definitely only 1:16 in the afternoon," Johnny says, voice trembling slightly. Doyoung straightens beside him.

"We're supposed to be here," he says with conviction. "This feels right. We're going the right way." 

They're slower to continue walking, but when they regain their senses Doyoung is in the lead, Taeyong following behind him in close quarters. After a while he makes a noise suddenly like he's in pain, and he takes off running, disappearing between the trees. 

"Hey!" Taeyong shouts, haring after him. 

He's nowhere near nimble enough to keep up with him, but Doyoung's white clothing stands out against the dark foliage. Eventually he breaks out into a clearing and there stands the white pagoda in all its glory, somehow looking more sacred than before in the moonlight. 

He finds Doyoung kneeling beside the water, staring into it like it holds the secrets of the universe. Pale moonlight cascades in through the slits in the roof, angled perfectly so that they fall on the stone pads that rise from the water. Even though there are no walls, it seems strangely secluded here, like the rest of the world has completely disappeared.

Taeyong takes a seat beside him, still catching his breath from the run. 

"This is it," Doyoung says without looking up. Taeyong leans over the water, hardly surprised to find that his reflection has returned. He passes a hand over the shallow water to be sure before gently lowering it in. 

It's still shockingly cold, but he forces himself to keep it there. Doyoung watches his fingers become submerged, then brings his own hand to rest on top of Taeyong's. He applies pressure, pushing it down more until the water rides up to his wrist and then halfway up his forearm before holding it there.

Taeyong's eyes widen with disbelief. The water can't be more than a few inches deep at best. From where he's sitting, it looks like his arm is buried in the stone on which the water is resting. 

Doyoung lets go and Taeyong pulls his arm out, inspecting it from all possible angles. It's completely fine, but it's not even wet—as if it had never been touching water at all. Doyoung just watches him.

"It's supposed to lead somewhere," Taeyong tells him, remembering Kyungsoo's words. Doyoung nods, pulling his legs from beneath himself.

"That's what I thought." 

Slowly, Doyoung eases his feet into the water. It rises up past his ankles all the way to his knees before stopping. Taeyong's heart quickens.

"Do you know where it leads?" he asks frantically, keeping his voice low—he isn't sure why he does. It feels like if he raises his voice too high, the peace will be violently shattered. 

Doyoung shakes his head. "This is where I should be, though." Without another word, he dives in with hardly a splash to indicate that anything had entered the water. Taeyong is stunned, stuck frozen staring at the spot in the water where he had disappeared. 

It's a few long moments before his brain resumes function, but by then Doyoung's head pops out from the water, bobbling slightly as if he were swimming. He's smiling. 

"Come," he says, reaching out to him. Taeyong lets himself be pulled forward until he's falling into nothingness. He's just barely aware of the sound of Ten shouting his name from somewhere too distant for him to comprehend. 

It's a whirlwind of light and sound and color all mixing together into one overwhelming cradle of _being_ that feels like weightlessness and suffocation all at once. He feels more than hears what he thinks are voices, or maybe they're just thoughts, he can't exactly tell—they seem to be asking him questions, poking and prodding around his head so much that it's starting to feel like mush. He's only vaguely aware of Doyoung at his side, or above him, or maybe they're sharing the same body right now and he doesn't even know, but it doesn't matter because it's all over in a split second and he's landing on something soft with an impossibly solid thud.

The world is still spinning when he opens his eyes. Tall, thin fronds are rising up all around him; they're fuzzy at the edges, and he thinks it's because it's head is still swimming until someone is pulling him up to stand and he finds that their edges simply refuse to come into focus.

Taeyong raises a hand to his head like he has a headache, but he's surprised to find that he doesn't. His dizziness disappears within moments and he's finally able to focus on Doyoung, who's standing in front of him, smiling. 

"I feel like I just went through a cosmic taffy stretcher," Taeyong says. Doyoung laughs and takes his hands, spinning him around like an excited child. Taeyong can't help but laugh along with him. "Where are we?" 

"The end," Doyoung answers, giddy. "And the beginning." 

He takes a moment to survey his surroundings. It's a field of tall grass, just like the one at Hanatan before Doyoung had expunged it, the only difference being that this one seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in all directions. He can't feel a breeze, but it's all swaying softly, dancing to a tune Taeyong can't hear. 

He thinks he should feel a bit unnerved, really, but right now all he feels is _peace._ Pulling one of his hands from Doyoung, he reaches out to brush against it while they spin. It's soft, like it'll dissolve in his fingers if he pressed hard enough. 

Doyoung stops spinning them suddenly. Taeyong can't get enough of how bright his eyes are, like they contain all the love and light in the universe. Maybe here, they really do. 

He pulls Taeyong along through the grass, which part for them easily. "Where are we going?" 

Doyoung turns back to look at him. "I have no idea," he says. "But this feels right." 

Taeyong laughs. "You seem to be guided a lot by feeling recently."

Doyoung jerks him forward suddenly, letting Taeyong trip onto him so that Doyoung can catch him with an arm around his waist. They're close enough for Taeyong to feel his heartbeat. "What's wrong with feeling?" he asks playfully. Taeyong kisses him on the nose. 

"Absolutely nothing." 

As they walk, their surroundings change from swaying fields to what looks like a park; the kind made specifically for elementary school kids, with a playground and everything. Two small children playing on a swing set come into view, with one pushing the other carefully, tight grip on the chains. 

"I want to go higher!" the child on the seat shouts, laughing. 

"I'm trying! You're too heavy!" the other shouts back, but he manages to pull him back far enough for the resulting swing to be pretty high off the ground. He laughs too, then, listening to the smaller child's screams of joy. 

"Donghyun," Taeyong hears Doyoung say quietly beside him. His gaze is wistful.

"Do you know them?" Taeyong asks.

"This was the day before," he tells him. "The one memory I have of that life." Before he was spirited away, Taeyong understands. He squeezes Doyoung's hand, an attempt to comfort him. 

"Donghyun is your brother, then?" 

Doyoung hums a yes. "Or was, maybe. We were so young. He might not even remember me, now." 

Taeyong wants to say _That doesn't make him_ not _your brother,_ but there isn't a trace of regret or sadness as Doyoung says it—just pure, detached speculation. He doesn't need any comforting.Taeyong lets himself be led away again at Doyoung's pull.

This time when the landscape changes, small shrubs sprout from the ground and mature into fully-grown towers of bark within footsteps, branches curling into each other from above to form a leafy canopy. Beside him, Doyoung giggles at what he imagines is his own awe-struck gaze. 

It's definitely the grove of Hanatan, but somewhat different. Some of the trees that line the dirt trail are thinner, some of the shrubs smaller or completely nonexistent. The trail itself is much neater than he remembers, without all the patches of grass growing where they shouldn't be. 

Ahead of them, a figure peeks out from behind a tree and dashes across the dirt road, vanishing into the brush on the other side. Taeyong and Doyoung share a look before breaking into a run to chase after it. 

The undergrowth is very clearly disturbed where the figure had disappeared. They step into it with soft steps, following the trail of flora that's still shaking in its wake. 

They find the figure crouching by a wide tree stump, and Taeyong would recognize that dark hair anywhere. It's undoubtedly Doyoung, though he looks younger—at least a few years. His shoulders aren't as broad and his arms are thinner than they are right now. 

Younger Doyoung looks nervous, and it's then that Taeyong notices what he's looking at. It's a ukulele, a soprano if he had to guess by the size, resting on top of the stump. He picks it up by the neck carefully, holding it away from him like it might explode at any moment. 

When he decides it probably won't cause him immediate bodily harm he passes a thumb over the four strings, softly at first, then harder once he realizes it makes sound. The four notes ring out into the forest clearly. It seems to be in tune, although Taeyong isn't sure how long that's going to last. 

Younger Doyoung laughs to himself, plopping himself into the grass and setting the instrument down flat in his lap, plucking at the strings like it's a zither. Taeyong can't help the smile that comes across his face as he watches him play it incorrectly. 

Doyoung seems to have the same thoughts as him. "I didn't know how to hold it." 

"That's okay," Taeyong says. "It looks like you were enjoying yourself." It's not like anyone had been around to correct him, anyway. "But I wonder who left it there in the first place. You think it could have been a gift to you?" 

Doyoung smiles. "That's a nice thought. Maybe that's what I'll believe from now on." 

They return to the main trail. It's subtle, but Taeyong notices the way the roots of some of the trees start to grow onto the path before his very eyes, and how new branches spring out from the boughs of various trees around them. It's aged, now, looking a lot like how it does in the present day. 

They come to where the path makes a sudden turn, and ahead of them lies the oh-so familiar patchwork of bracken that leads to their usual clearing. Both of them approach it without a second thought. As they do, voices start to trail through the leaves. 

There are two people sitting in the clearing, both of their legs dangling over the cliff face. He recognizes Doyoung immediately, but it takes an extra moment for it to register that the person beside him is Taeyong. 

Taeyong from several months ago, at least. His hair was shorter back then, just barely touching the base of his neck. 

"This was when we first met," Present Taeyong says. Doyoung hums, linking their arms together and pressing close to his side to watch their past selves converse.

He doesn't remember their first conversation being particularly long, though, so he isn't surprised when the scene barely lasts for a few moments before the woodwork starts to dissolve around them only to be replaced by grass again. It's shorter than the field from before, but just as responsive to the nonexistent breeze. He watches as flowers start to spring up around them, small white ones with leaves that split in two at the end. 

"Those were your memories," Taeyong states.

Doyoung takes both of Taeyong's hands in his own again, swinging them lightly to and fro. "Something like that. The important ones, anyway." He leans in to kiss Taeyong, soft and sweet. Taeyong smiles into it, indulging in the warmth of his lips. "You were the most important thing to happen to me." he says when he pulls away.

Oh. Right. This is supposed to be a goodbye. Taeyong's eyes start burning, and he rubs at them before the tears can fully form. "You're staying here." 

Doyoung smiles at him, bittersweet. "I am. Being here...feels like everything is settling into place. I feel happy here. I know I said I wouldn't leave this earth peacefully, but peace is all I've ever known with you. Peace I didn't know I had been missing." 

"Won't you be lonely?" Lonely without _me,_ Taeyong wants to ask, but he doesn't. This isn't about him. Not anymore. 

"Once you leave here, I'll no longer exist. I won't feel lonely then." Doyoung lets out a breath then, almost a sigh but not quite. "Taeyong...the parting hurts, but I want you to know that you showed me more to life than I ever thought existed. For the chance to love someone and be loved back...who knows how long I would have been stuck in that forest, not a clue that there was anything else out there to experience?" He kisses Taeyong again, this time on the corner of his mouth. "You freed me, Taeyong. I don't know how to express my gratitude for that." 

_You could stay,_ Taeyong wants to say, but he doesn't. He can't ask Doyoung to give his life to and only for him. It wouldn't be fair. If Doyoung wants to be free, then he has to let him go. 

"Oh, Doyoung, how am I supposed to get over you?" Taeyong asks, quiet. He doesn't know how he hasn't started crying yet, but he knows his words come out choked with emotion. "I was so miserable before I met you. You gave me happiness when nothing and nobody else could. You taught me how to love again." Deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Try again. "What will I do without you?"

"Live," Doyoung answers simply. "Just live. I know It'll be hard, but let this be the last memory you have of me, at least." He captures Taeyong's mouth in a kiss again, this time slower, more tender, and _this_ is definitely a goodbye. Wrapping his arms around Doyoung's neck he pulls them close, trying so hard to pour out all the love in his fragile, useless body into the kiss. 

Unfortunately, dreadfully, they eventually pull apart. Doyoung's hands are in his hair, twisting locks between his fingers like he always does. He presses a final kiss to his forehead and smiles. 

"I love you, Lee Taeyong." 

Taeyong just hugs him, holding as tight as he can even though he knows it's a worthless endeavor. It takes a moment for him to find his voice again, but when he does he makes sure it comes out as clear and steady as possible so Doyoung will never forget it.

"I love you, Kim Doyoung." 

Doyoung gives him one last squeeze, and suddenly the world starts to swim again, fading out into a calm, emotionless nothing.

  
  
月  
  
  


Taeyong takes in a huge breath when he resurfaces from the water, his lungs burning like he's been holding his breath for the entire time he was under. Apparently there were arms waiting to pull him out all this time, but he's hardly paying attention to that, instead focusing on getting the oxygen circulating in his blood stream again. 

He gets the odd feeling like he's reliving a memory, and it only hits him while he's vomiting into the dirt just outside of the pavilion—the feeling of his organs being completely rearranged in his body, the feeling of being unmade. He's only vaguely aware of a hand rubbing slow circles into his back.

"Taeyong, what happened? Where did you go?" Johnny's voice starts to fade in once his abdomen has stopped trying to kill him. 

"Gone," he chokes out, still kneeling in the dirt. Tears are rushing from his eyes now, coming out so strongly he doesn't bother wiping them away. "He's fucking gone." 

"So...it worked?" Ten's voice sounds from somewhere beside him. 

Taeyong hiccups through his sobs. " _Yes,_ it fucking worked. He's gone, dead, and he's never coming back." 

"He got what he wanted," Ten says. The relief in his voice makes Taeyong's blood boil. How can he be relieved when the most beautiful creature to walk this earth was gone?

Johnny helps him up, and Taeyong lets him. He doesn't even know how his legs are moving through this grief, hardly even acknowledging the movement around him until he's sitting in the back of Ten's car trying and failing to bite back his tears because Kyungsoo is still here and he doesn't want to make him uncomfortable, but he knows he is, anyway. 

He's able to gather himself just enough to realize that despite the clock on the car's dashboard reading 16:06, the sky is completely dark, starless, nothing but the moon shining down on them. It's jarring enough for the tears to stop, but it's not long before he's reminded of the cold cut of moonlight always present in Doyoung's eyes, and the sobbing continues.

He's crying while Johnny is escorting him back to the dorm, and he's crying while he half-listens to him on the phone with Jaehyun asking him to come over, please, because Taeyong is in hysterics and he has no idea what to do and you're the only person who can get through to him when he's like this.

Taeyong has always hated being coddled. Even if he felt worthless most days, even when he genuinely needed help or the comfort of others, he was hard pressed to accept other people's pity for any reason at all. His friends know that he gets prickly when he's upset, and they leave him alone accordingly.

Right now though, Taeyong doesn't have it in him to turn Jaehyun away, as much as it pisses him off. He hates the way Jaehyun holds him in his arms, warm and solid, while he cries oceans into his shirt. He hates the way it takes him two days to realize that Johnny's left again, probably still staying at Ten's apartment, avoiding him because Taeyong doesn't know how to handle his own feelings. He hates the way Jaehyun keeps returning day after day to check in on him before eventually just moving in temporarily, not even bothering to take Johnny's bed, holding Taeyong close every night while he cries himself to sleep.

He hates how Jaehyun forces him to go to his classes in the afternoon, physically dragging him some days, and he hates how he has to sit as far back as possible so his crying doesn't disturb others too much. He hates how he sits in there with Taeyong on the rare occasion their schedules align and Jaehyun doesn't have a class, taking notes for him because Taeyong can barely see through his tears well enough to write, let alone listen to his lectures. He hates that he steals the key to his bike lock so he can't run off in the middle of the night to Hanatan, even though he knows Doyoung won't be there, can't possibly be there anymore. 

He hates how Jaehyun stays with him through his worst days, when he's beating his hands into Jaehyun's chest with frustration and anger and heartache because he won't fucking leave him alone to mourn himself to death. He hates how Jaehyun just holds his wrist with an iron grip until he calms down, then hugs him like Taeyong hadn't just been screaming at him, calling him every obscenity under the sun with as much vitriol as he can muster. He hates the unconditional love Jaehyun shows him because he's never been able to reciprocate it and he doesn't think he'll ever be able to, and the guilt only adds to how pathetic he feels. 

It's not even just Jaehyun who Taeyong hates. He hates how the moon hangs in the sky for an unprecedented seventy-two hours after the transit of Venus, sending the world into hysterics—he hates how religious fanatics claim this is the end of the world and to repent or face eternal misery, he hates how those three days are weekdays and he still has to go to class even though it feels like the world is ending, and he hates the way he actually misses the sun for once because Doyoung was never the sun, he was his beautiful, cold moon, and he can't believe it has the audacity to stay in the sky for so long when Doyoung isn't there to witness it _._

Taeyong hates and hates and _hates_ because he gave all of the love in his body to one person, and now that person is gone. 

Every day without Doyoung feels like the worst Taeyong has ever woken up to. He feels like throwing up a lot of the time, and if he doesn't feel like throwing up, he feels like dying. It's physically painful to think about how he's no longer in his life, no longer in this _world._ Everything seems to remind Taeyong of him, so much so that he spends nearly an entire day under his blanket at some point because he can't bear to look at anything or anyone lest his heart fall out of his ribcage and he bleed out then and there. 

It's three long, arduous, miserable months before Taeyong's grief starts to lift from his chest. 

As much as he wanted to believe that the universe only ever wanted what was worst for him, Taeyong had to be grateful that by the grace of God (read: Jungwoo and Johnny somehow convincing his classmates to send him notes and assignment updates constantly), he was able to pass the final semester of that year. That just leaves one more year to go, and Taeyong will be free from the death trap of higher education forever. 

He remembers how they had greeted him just outside of the exam hall with cake and party balloons, and it's the first time that Taeyong had cried from something other than sadness.

It still hurts like hell whenever he thinks about Doyoung, but it's far more bearable, now. Part of him almost feels silly for getting so attached to him—as if they could've had a future together in the first place. Considering the role of planetary bodies in Doyoung's existence, Taeyong doesn't think it would be inaccurate to call them star-crossed lovers after all. 

It's unfortunate, and there are still several nights where he wants to scream at whatever higher power will listen to him _why, why did you have to show me the purest love and then snatch it away from me, how could you be so cruel —_but really, there wouldn't be any point to it. He had wanted to punch Yuta the first time he had told him that, the implication that his relationship with Doyoung wasn't worth fighting for making him flush with anger.

He didn't, though. Instead Taeyong had just snapped at him, something bitter he doesn't remember. Yuta had met his vitriol with a smile and a casual shrug. 

_Scream and cry all you want, but the world isn't going to stop spinning just so you can mourn. So...just roll with the punches, you know?_

He had taken Taeyong out for a walk after that, down to the convenience store to buy some snacks. It's been a long time since he had last gone outside, and he finds that the warmth of the sun is...nice, actually. Yuta is in a good mood, taking Taeyong's hand in his own and swinging it back and forth, whistling. His smile is infectious.

"What are you so happy for?" he asks. Yuta runs a hand along the side of a chain-link fence, letting the rings on his fingers clank against the metal. His hair is back to its natural brown, pulled back into a loose ponytail. 

"Do I have to have a reason?" Yuta says. 

No, Taeyong supposes. He doesn't.

That had been just over a week ago. He had thought about Yuta's words a lot since then, and even though it had made him upset at first, he's able to accept that it was something he needed to hear. More often than not, Taeyong finds that all he really needs is a person that can force him to swallow the pills he doesn't want to. 

It's what's on his mind now while he doodles uneven circles into the margins of his journal. Johnny had gotten it for him for his birthday earlier in the month—it's leather-bound, with his name engraved with small gold characters on the front cover. 

"Keeping a diary can be good for your mental health," he had said. Taeyong believed him.

He had brought it with him to Jaehyun's apartment in case something suddenly popped into his mind that he wanted to pen down. Something seemed to be at the tip of a coherent thought, but right now it's just a vague feeling he can't explicate very well. 

Jaehyun returns to his room from the kitchen, carrying two glasses of water. He sets the one with two ice cubes on the desk Taeyong is sitting at. 

"Thinking of writing something?" he asks. 

Taeyong hums. "Definitely thinking. Not sure about writing." 

Jaehyun pulls up a spare chair to sit beside him. He quirks an eyebrow at the series of doodles on the outer edges of the pages. "What about?" 

Taeyong closes the book lightly, deciding to try again at another time. "This next year will be my last at the university," he says. "It's weird to think about how long we've been friends." Jaehyun was a year younger than him, but he was smart enough to skip a grade at some point in elementary school, landing him a seat beside Taeyong in their 10th grade chemistry class a little less than a decade down the line.

Jaehyun plucks the pen from his hand, turns it palm-up, and starts doodling on it. It tickles, but he doesn't pull away. "Should we get matching tattoos to commemorate our friendship?" 

Taeyong huffs a laugh. "I don't think I'd be too averse to that, honestly. Johnny and Jungwoo have to get it too, though." 

"Well, that's a given." 

A few moments pass in silence before Taeyong speaks. "Jaehyun, listen." Jaehyun pauses in the middle of the crude sword he's drawing on Taeyong's pinky to look him in the eye. He's always had a rather intense gaze, but for whatever reason it's never intimidated Taeyong like it did with other people. "Thank you for sticking by me. Back in April, I mean. And even before that. I wasn't...I haven't been the greatest friend in a long while. But I'm glad you're still here with me." 

Jaehyun smiles, dimples and all. "Of course, hyung. You know I'll always be here. Jungwoo and Johnny will always be here for you, too, even if they're not as good at showing it." He returns to the sword, adding a finishing touch to the blade end. "What else are friends for?" 

Taeyong smiles, heart feeling full. Doyoung had told him to live, because he has a lot going for him here in Incheon, on this Earth, with this life. He thought he had understood it back then, but sitting here in Jaehyun's apartment letting him doodle on his hands like they're teenagers back in highschool again, it makes sense in a different way. 

For the first time in what feels like forever, Taeyong thinks he'll be alright. 

When he returns to Hanatan a couple years down the line, he returns alone. It's his last day in Incheon before he ships off to Seoul to work for SM Entertainment, his dream label back when he had been a college student. It still feels like a dream, if he's being honest.

Although he had already stuffed all of his belongings into boxes and suitcases of varying sizes, it felt like something was missing for the longest time. He spends at least three days feeling uncomfortably listless for no discernable reason until he invites Mark out for a coffee one afternoon, a week before he's supposed to leave.

It's not like he explicitly mentions Doyoung or anything. Everyone sans Jaehyun and Yuta still dance around the topic with him, scared that he'll burst into tears again the moment he's reminded.

The truth is that Taeyong hasn't cried over Kim Doyoung since he graduated. It still hurts if he thinks about it for long enough, but he never lets that happenæ or on the off day where he does, it's a pinprick compared to what he had suffered that year as a junior. He doesn't think it's possible to ever be truly over somebody you once loved, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's enough room in Taeyong's heart for the past and the present.

Mark's youthful countenance and endless enthusiasm for seemingly everything makes him remember, though. He doesn't cry. He doesn't even think he feels sad. He just excuses himself once they've finished their coffee, promising to text him all about Seoul when he gets there, and calls a taxi to take him to Hanatan Trailhead once he steps out of the café.

The field of grass is just as overgrown as it had been five years ago, not a single trace of the murky blackness from Doyoung's outburst all that time ago. A particularly strong gust of wind blows, sending the entire field billowing in its wake. Taeyong thinks of memories that aren't his own.

When he passes by the old worn-down trail sign, he finds that it's no longer jutting out from the ground sideways but instead laying half-buried in the dirt, almost invisible unless you were looking for it. The wind blows again, sending the aroma of camphor and pine needles down from where the woods grow thicker and the air grows cooler. Never in Taeyong's life has he been struck with as strong a sense of familiarity.

The collection of bracken that led to the clearing is exactly how he remembers it, as if no time had lapsed at all. Pushing through it is more muscle memory than anything. He can hardly be hardly cognizant of the motion of his limbs anyway, not when the vestiges of old conversations and old confessions start to flit through his mind in clear fragments.

Taeyong doesn't cry when he kneels in the center of the clearing and runs gentle fingers over a patch of small white flowers, fork-tongued and oddly lumiscent even with the sun beating down on them. He doesn't cry when he thinks about broad shoulders and white clothing, he doesn't cry when he thinks about freezing cold water and warm kisses and moonlight, and he certainly doesn't cry when he thinks about the final words Doyoung had left him with that day.

Instead, Taeyong just smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading my story! i started writing this on a whim sometime in late february and i'm happy to say it's complete! i put together a playlist for it in between planning and writing; in fact, the song 'i lost something in the hills' is what gave me the initial idea to write this. here it is on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeHGGVPCaKltNC_gKpLzzyhaa3q9S13ak) and on [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7M3fNp2PIQlyr3ZYbib6QA). please enjoy!!!
> 
> anyway, here are some more notes:
> 
> -'burn this moment into the retina of my eye' is a song by goreshit!  
> -the phrase 'the end and the beginning' was inspired by razia's shadow, my favorite musical. go give it a listen, it's very healing, and has a theme similar to this fic!  
> -as usual my favorite dynamic in this fic is not actually the main pairing...taeyong and jaehyun's friendship was extremely fun for me to write. hold hands with your friends platonically and you WILL heal. honestly i might have even tricked myself into shipping them whoops  
> -the most unrealistic part of this fic is u and all ur friends from highschool going to the same college rofl
> 
> if there's anything about this i regret it's the lack of female characters..but i don't listen to any girl groups and i dont want to have random people in my story i don't know anything about. someone convince me to stan red velvet SM already owns my ass it seems like
> 
> thank you again for reading! my kpop sideblog is @sputnikp if you wanna talk, and im on twitter too, @sputnikmp3. have a good day!
> 
> edit: i made a[curious cat](https://curiouscat.qa/sputnikmp3) come yell at me ^-^


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